Lolita

impatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva. I knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on her part, a bit of backfisch foolery in imitation of some simulacrum of fake romance, and since (as the psychotherapist, as well as the rapist, will tell you) the limits and rules of such girlish games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for the senior partner to graspI was dreadfully afraid I might go too far and cause her to start back in revulsion and terror. And, as above all I was agonizingly anxious to smuggle her into the hermetic seclusion of The Enchanged Hunters, and we had still eighty miles to go, blessed intuition broke our embracea split second before a highway patrol car drew up alongside.

Florid and beetle-browed, its driver stared at me:

“Happen to see a blue sedan, same make as yours, pass you before the junction?”

“Why, no.”

“We didn’t,” said Lo, eagerly leaning across me, her innocent hand on my legs, “but are you sure it was blue, because”

The cop (what shadow of us was he after?) gave the little colleen his best smile and went into a U- turn.

We drove on.

“The fruithead!” remarked Lo. “He should have nabbed you.”

“Why me for heaven’s sake?”

“Well, the speed in this bum state is fifty, andNo, don’t slow down, you, dull bulb. He’s gone now.”

“We have still quite a stretch,” I said, “and I want to get there before dark. So be a good girl.”

“Bad, bad girl,” said Lo comfortably. “Juvenile delickwent, but frank and fetching. That light was red. I’ve never seen such driving.”

We rolled silently through a silent townlet.

“Say, wouldn’t Mother be absolutely mad if she found out we were lovers?”

“Good Lord, Lo, let us not talk that way.”

“But we are lovers, aren’t we?”

“Not that I know of. I think we are going to have some more rain. Don’t you want to tell me of those little pranks of yours in camp?”

“You talk like a book, Dad.”

“What have you been up to? I insist you tell me.”

“Are you easily shocked?”

“No. Go on.”

“Let us turn into a secluded lane and I’ll tell you.”

“Lo, I must seriously ask you not to play the fool. Well?”

“WellI joined in all the activities that were offered.”

“Ensuite?”

“Ansooit, I was taught to live happily and richly with others and to develop a wholesome personality. Be a cake, in fact.”

“Yes. I saw something of the sort in the booklet.”

“We loved the sings around the fire in the big stone fireplace or under the darned stars, where every girl merged her own spirit of happiness with the voice of the group.”

“Your memory is excellent, Lo, but I must trouble you to leave out the swear words. Anything else?”

“The Girl Scout’s motto,” said Lo rhapsodically, “is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such aswell, never mind what. My duty isto be useful. I am a friend to male animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. That was another police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought, word and deed.”

“Now I do hope that’s all, you witty child.”

“Yep. That’s all. Nowait a sec. We baked in a reflector oven. Isn’t that terrific?”

“Well, that’s better.”

“We washed zillions of dishes. ‘Zillions’ you know is schoolmarm’s slang for many-many-many-many. Oh yes, last but not least, as Mother saysNow let me seewhat was it? I know we made shadowgraphs. Gee, what fun.”

“C’est bien tout?”

“C’est. Except for one little thing, something I simply can’t tell you without blushing all over.”

“Will you tell it me later?”

“If we sit in the dark and you let me whisper, I will. Do you sleep in your old room or in a heap with Mother?”

“Old room. Your mother may have to undergo a very serious operation, Lo.”

“Stop at that candy bar, will you,” said Lo.

Sitting on a high stool, a band of sunlight crossing her bare brown forearm, Lolita was served an elaborate ice-cream concoction topped with synthetic syrup. It was erected and brought her by a pimply brute of a boy in a greasy bow-tie who eyed my fragile child in her thin cotton frock with carnal deliberation. My impatience to reach Briceland and The Enchanted Hunters was becoming more than I could endure. Fortunately she dispatched the stuff with her usual alacrity.

“How much cash do you have?” I asked.

“Not a cent,” she said sadly, lifting her eyebrows, showing me the empty inside of her money purse.

“This is a matter that will be mended in due time,” I rejoined archly. “Are you coming?”

“Say, I wonder if they have a washroom.”

“you are not going there,” I said Firmly. “It is sure to be a vile place. Do come on.”

She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck when we got back into the car.

“Don’t do that,” she said looking at me with unfeigned surprise. “Don’t drool on me. You dirty man.”

She rubbed the spot against her raised shoulder.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I’m rather fond of you, that’s all.”

We drove under a gloomy sky, up a winding road, then down again.

“Well, I’m also sort of fond of you,” said Lolita in a delayed soft voice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me.

(Oh, my Lolita, we shall never get there!)

Dusk was beginning to saturate pretty little Briceland, its phony colonial architecture, curiosity sops and imported shade trees, when we drove through the weakly lighted streets in search of the Enchanted Hunters. The air, despite a steady drizzle beading it, was warm and green, and a queue of people, mainly children and old men, had already formed before the box office of a movie house, dripping with jewel-fires.

“Oh, I want to see that picture. Let’s go right after dinner. Oh, let’s!”

“We might,” chanted Humbertknowing perfectly well, the sly tumescent devil, that by nine, when his show began, she would be dead in his arms.

“Easy!” cried Lo, lurching forward, as an accursed truck in front of us, its backside carbuncles pulsating, stopped at a crossing.

If we did not get to the hotel soon, immediately, miraculously, in the very next block, I felt I would lose all control over the Haze jalopy with its ineffectual wipers and whimsical brakes; but the passers-by I applied to for directions were either strangers themselves or asked with a frown “Enchanted what?” as if I were a madman; or else they went into such complicated explanations, with geometrical gestures, geographical generalities and strictly local clues (…then bear south after you hit the court-house…) that I could not help losing my way in the maze of their well-meaning gibberish. Lo, whose lovely prismatic entrails had already digested the sweetmeat, was looking forward to a big meal and had begun to fidget. As to me, although I had long become used to a kind of secondary fate (McFate’s inept secretary, so to speak) pettily interfering with the boss’s generous magnificent planto grind and grope through the avenues of Briceland was perhaps the most exasperating ordeal I had yet faced. In later months I could laugh at my inexperience when recalling the obstinate boyish way in which I had concentrated upon that particular inn with its fancy name; for all along our route countless motor courts proclaimed their vacancy in neon lights, ready to accommodate salesmen, escaped convicts, impotents, family groups, as well as the most