Dhalgren

'You see,' Kid said, 'instead of telling me what's been going on while I was there, you should be finding out what's been going on here.'

'Sure,' Lanya said. 'What?'

'I been balling these two, for one thing. That seemed like days…'

Denny's chin jerked.

The girl sighed a little.

'Denny's a good fuck,' Kid said. 'She is too. But sometimes it gets a little hectic.'

'Denny…?' the girl said.

Denny, sitting back on his heels, darted his eyes from Lanya to Kid.

'Maybe,' Kid said, and suddenly his hands came apart, 'we all could ball again. I mean the four of us. That might work out better—'

The girl said, 'Denny, I'm supposed to be going some place with Copperhead and his friends. I told you that before. Look I gotta …'

'Oh,' Denny said. 'Well, okay.'

'You sure?' Kid asked the girl. 'I mean, the whole idea was because I thought maybe it would make you feel better if…'

The girl poised at the edge of the loft. 'Look,' she said. 'You're probably trying to be very nice. But you just don't understand. It isn't my thing. Maybe it's his.' She nodded toward Denny. 'I don't know… is it yours?' That was to Lanya.

'I don't know,' Lanya said. 'I've never tried.'

'I don't mind somebody watching,' the girl said, 'if it's a friend. But what we were doing,' she shrugged; 'It isn't me.' She got down from the platform, paused again, just a head showing. 'Denny, I'll see you later. Goodbye,' with the same tone Kid remembered from the sixteenth-floor apartment in the Labrys. A second later she tripped on something, gave a startled, stifled, 'Shit…' and was gone.

Kid looked from Denny to Lanya, back to Denny. 'We…' he started. 'We were just… we figured we'd use your loft because, well, there were so many other people around. Like she said; the mob.'

'That's okay,' Denny said. He crossed his arms. 'Is it okay if I watch?'

Lanya laughed and sat back against the window edge. A scar of light from beside the shade lay on her hair.

Denny looked at her. 'That's what I like to do. Sometimes, I mean, since it's my place. He knows.'

'Sure,' Lanya said. 'That's reasonable.' She nodded, laughed again.

'We were just using it to talk,' Kid said.

'Oh,' Denny said. 'I just thought because you were saying we should all… you know. All of us.'

'You do live in a strange city,' Lanya said. 'Maybe I do too.' She looked at Denny. 'Where do you live?'

'Right here.' Denny frowned. 'Most of the time.'

'Oh.' After a moment, Lanya said: 'You two've been at it? Why don't you two make it then—' she moved her tennis shoes from beneath her, raised her knees, dropped her meshed fists between—'and I'll watch. I've been in the other room when two guys were balling. But I've never been in the same bed. The idea sort of turns me on.'

Kid said: 'I just meant—'

'I know,' Lanya said. 'You want Denny and me to ball, and you want to watch. Well—' she shrugged, tossed her hair and grinned—'I think you're cute—' at Denny. 'I wouldn't mind that.'

'Gee,' Denny said, 'I don't know if…' and shifted into some other emotional gear: 'because you see that's what we were…' and into another: 'before. It was okay. But…' He went forward on his fists, lowered his haunches. 'It's just that it wasn't her…' He glanced over the edge. 'Like she said. And I'd never done it that way either.'

'Oh.' Lanya said, pushing her elbows together.

Kid thought: I still don't know her name. 'Hey,' he said to Lanya. 'Come here.'

Lanya pursed her lips, hesitated with stiffened arms; then they unstiffened. She came forward.

'You too, motherfucker.' Denny practically fell against his side. Kid caught the boy's neck in the crook of his arm. The blades swung beyond Denny's face, dim in half light. Kid pulled his arm tight around Lanya's shoulder, his hand an epaulet over blouse, collar bone, muscle.

'If you don't play, you don't watch.'

He had been planning to squeeze them affectionately, maybe say something else funny, and let go. But, for a moment, he was aware they were two entirely different temperatures; and something in his own heat was defined) resolved, released. And Denny (his shoulder hot and still powdery dry) reached across Kid's chest, put two fingers against Lanya's cheek (her neck against Kid's arm cooler and softer, as though it had been recently dried after rain) and said. 'You're…' and stopped when she reached out and put her palm on Denny's neck. Kid said: 'Yeah…' She watched, something happening in her face, which became quiet laughter, her eyes going back and forth between Kid's and Denny's, pulling herself closer.

Denny's head suddenly moved. His laugh back was sharp, shrill. Still, whatever tensions were in it eased in it.

'You open your mouth after this morning, cocksucker,' Kid said, 'and it won't be my dick you get in it—'

'Kid…!' Lanya's protest was real.

But Denny caught Lanya's forearm, turned his face into her palm.

Something in the machinery between Kid's belly and loin tightened. Denny was trying to climb over him. Kid moved a leg between them — something scraped. Lanya got one elbow under her. Kid's hand dragged her back. It's clumsy, Kid thought. It is clumsy! and a despair that he had been trying to hold in suspension for — how long? broke. He thought he was going to cry. What came out was a great, voiceless gasp.

Denny lay his head down on Lanya's hand that was on Kid's chest. Then he said, softly, 'Aren't we gonna take our clothes off… this time?'

Lanya moved her other hand down Denny's head till she was holding his ear.

'Don't pull,' Denny said. 'I'm not pulling,' she said. 'I'm tickling.'

'Oh,' Denny said. And then: 'That's nice.' And then, raising his head, 'I think you better take that thing off — at least.'

(Kid looked at his hand still in the air. It was quieter in the other room.)

Lanya suddenly sat. 'Oh wow. Sure.' She wore one of her stranger expressions. 'I didn't even see!'

Kneeling over him, she took Kid's wrist, got the clasp. Kid was completely astonished when Denny's hands joined hers and, with no clumsiness, the blades opened, fell away: the harness was lifted from his tingling wrist.

Lanya put it on the window ledge by the blind, where it stood, upright, a long, bright crown.

Kid turned his freed hand in the air, looking at the hirsute joints and ruined tips flex, horny palms and knuckles folding, opening, till, tired, it began to waver, fall. Someone tugged at his belt. Someone pulled at his vest shoulder. He laughed, turning, while through some door in another room a lot of people left.

They made love.

It was energetic. It was graceful. It was intense. He was a warmth that moved around and between them. They were warmths that moved around him, between him and each other. Once, eyes closed against the damp blanket, he moved his hand across her rib cage, brushing beneath her breasts with the knuckle of his thumb (she caught her breath…) till he reached her arm (…then let it out) and followed her arm to where her elbow bent on Denny's belly, and on to where her hand held Denny's penis.

After moments, his hand came away, against the embankment of her hip, crossed it. He pressed his fingertips in the hair over her pubic bone, slid them down to cup, to press in. First one, then the other, he touched their genitals. Finally he pushed himself to his knees, put one knee across them, watched them watch him, blinked. Sweat dribbled his cheek. A drop caught in his eyelash and shook. He bent his head.

Is it only an hour, he wondered, that encompassed three people's four orgasms?