Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

going to tell me more about yourself—and you're going to let me help you. You've got a wife—very beautiful too.» I gave an involuntary jerk. He tightened his grip on my arm and led me to the table.

«Henry, let's talk straight for a change. I know a thing or two, even if I don't look it.» Pause. «Get your wife out of that joint!»

I was just about to say «What joint?» when he resumed: «A guy can get mixed up in all sorts of things and come out clean—sometimes. But a woman's different. You don't like to see her working there, with those dizzy fluffs, do you? Find out what's keeping her there. Don't get sore now... I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I don't know anything about your wife—that is, any more than I've heard...»

«She's not my wife,» I blurted out.

«Well, whatever she is to you,» he said smoothly, as if that were quite an unimportant detail, «get her out of that joint! I'm telling you like a friend. I know what I'm talking about.»

I began to put two and two together, rapidly, fitfully. My mind shifted back to Florrie and Hannah, to their sudden exit. Was there going to be a raid, a shake-up—or a shake-down? Was he trying to warn me?

He must have divined what was going on in my head, for the next thing out of his mouth was this: «If she has to have a job let me try to find her something. She could do something else, couldn't she? An attractive girl like her...»

«Let's drop it,» I said, «and thanks for the tip.»

For a while we ate in silence. Then, apropos of nothing, Monahan took out the fat wad of greenbacks and peeled off two fifty dollar bills. He placed them beside my plate. «Take them,» he said «and put 'em in your pocket. Let her try the theatre, why don't you?» He lowered his head to shovel a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. I picked up the bills and quietly shoved them into my trousers pocket.

As soon as I could free myself I set off to meet Mona in front of the dance hall. I was in a strange mood.

My head was spinning a bit as I rolled merrily along towards Broadway. I was determined to be cheerful, though something told me I had reason to be otherwise. The meal and the few parting shots that Monahan had succeeded in driving home had sobered me up somewhat. I felt large and luxuriant, in a mood to enjoy my own thoughts. Euphoric, as Kronski would say. To me that always meant being happy for no reason. Just being happy, knowing you're happy, and staying happy no matter what any one says or does. It wasn't alcoholic joy; the whiskies may have precipitated the mood, but nothing more. It wasn't some underneath self that was cropping out—it was rather an overhead self, if I might put it that way. With each step I took the fumes of the liquor evaporated; my mind was growing almost frighteningly clear.

As I passed a theatre a glancing look at a billboard brought back a familiar face. I knew who it was, the name and everything, and I was astonished but—well, to put it truthfully, I was so much more astonished by what was going on inside me that I hadn't time or room to be astonished by something that had happened to some one else. I would come back to her later, when the euphoria had passed away. And just as I was promising myself that, who did I run into head on but my old friend Bill Woodruff.

Hello hello, how are you, yes fine, long time since . I saw you, what are you doing, how's the wife, see you again some time, yes I'm in a hurry, sure I'll come up, so long, good-bye... it went like that, rat-a-tat-tat. Two solid bodies colliding in space at the wrong time, rubbing surfaces together, exchanging souvenirs, plugging in wrong numbers, promising and re-promising, forgetting, parting, remembering again... hurried, mechanical, meaningless, and what the hell does it all add up to?

After ten years he looked just the same, Woodruff. I wanted to take a look at myself in the mirror— quick. Ten years! And he wanted all the news in a nut-shell. Dumb bastard! A sentimentalist. Ten years. I ran back through the years, down a long twisted funnel of a corridor with distorted mirrors on either side. I got right to that spot in time and space where I had Woodruff fixed in my mind the way I would always see him, even in the next world. He was pinned there, as if he were a winged specimen under the microscope. That was where he revolved helplessly on his axis. And that's where she comes in—the one whose picture flashed through my brain as I passed the theatre. She was the one he was crazy about, the girl he couldn't live without, and everybody had to help him woo her, even his mother and father, even his cluck of a Prussian brother-in-law whose guts he hated.

Ida Verlaine. Born to fit the name. She was just exactly the way her name sounded—pretty, vain, theatrical, faithless, spoiled, pampered, petted. Beautiful as a Dresden doll, only she had raven tresses and a Javanese slant to her soul. If she had a soul at all! Lived entirely in the body, in her senses, her desires—and she directed the show, the body show, with her tyrannical little will which poor Woodruff translated as some monumental force of character.

Ida, Ida.... He used to chew our ears off about her. She was delicate in a perverse way, like one of Cranach's nudes. The body very fair, the hair very black, the soul tilted backwards, like a stone becoming dislodged from its Egyptian setting. They had disgraceful scenes during the courtship; Woodruff would often leave her in tears. The next day he would send her orchids or a beautiful lavellier or a gigantic box of chocolates. Ida swallowed everything, like a pythoness. She was heartless and insatiable.

Eventually he prevailed on her to marry him. He must have bribed her, for it was obvious that she despised him. He built a beautiful little love nest which was far beyond his means, bought her the clothes and other things she craved, took her to the theatre several nights a week, stuffed her with sweets, sat by her side and held her hand when she was having her menstrual pains, consulted a specialist if she had a cough, and in general played the fond, doting husband.

The more he did for her the less she cared for him. She was a monster from head to toe. Little by little it leaked out that she was frigid. None of us believed it of course, except Woodruff. He was to have the same experience later, with his second wife, and if he had lived long enough he would have had it with the third and fourth wives. With Ida his infatuation was so great that, if she had lost her legs, I don't think it would have altered his affection in the least—in fact, he would only have loved her the more.

For all his faults Woodruff was keen on friendship. There were at least six of us whom he had taken to his bosom and whom he trusted implicitly.

I was one of them—his oldest friend, as a matter of fact. I had the privilege of walking in and out of his home at will; I could eat, sleep, bathe, shave there. I was one of the family.

From the very beginning I disliked Ida, not because of her behavior towards Woodruff, but instinctively.

Ida in turn was uneasy in my presence. She didn't quite know what to make of me. I never criticized her nor did I ever flatter her; I acted as though she were the wife of my friend, and nothing more. She wasn't satisfied with such an attitude, naturally. She wanted to bring me under her spell, make me walk the tight-rope, as she had done with Woodruff and her other suitors. Oddly enough, I was never more immune to a woman's charms. I just didn't give a fuck for her, as a person, though I often wondered what she might be like as a piece of fuck, so to speak.

I wondered about it in a detached way, but somehow it got across to her, got under her skin.

Sometimes, after passing the night at their home, she would complain aloud that she didn't want to be left alone with me. Woodruff would be standing at the door, ready to go to work, and she pretending to be worried. I'd be lying in bed waiting for her to bring me my breakfast. And Woodruff saying to her: «Don't talk that way, Ida. He's not going to harm you—I'd trust him with my life.»

Sometimes I'd burst out laughing and yell: «Don't worry, Ida, I'm not going to rape you. I'm impotent.»

«You impotent?» she'd scream with pretended hysteria. «You're not impotent. You're a lecher.»

«Bring him his breakfast!» Woodruff would say, and off to work he'd go.

She hated the thought of waiting on me in bed. She didn't do it for her husband and she couldn't see why she should do it for me. To take breakfast in bed was something I never did, except at Woodruff's place. I did it expressly to annoy and humiliate her.

«Why don't you get up and come to the table?» she would say.

«I can't—I've got an erection.»

«Oh, stop talking about that thing. Can't you think of anything but sex?»

Her words implied that sex was horrible, nasty, simply odious to her, but her manner indicated quite the opposite. She was a lascivious bitch, frigid only because she had the heart of a whore. If I ran my hand up her leg when she put the tray on my lap she would say: «Are you satisfied? Take a good feel while you're at it. I wish Bill