Walking up and down beside the Hershey Almond bars stacked one upon another like precious ingots, I rub against the pack. A thousand smiles are raining from every direction; I lift my face as if to catch the shimmering dew drops dispersed by a gentle breeze. Smiles, smiles. As if it weren't life and death, a race to the womb and back again. Flutter and frou-frou, camphor and fish balls, Omega oil ... wings spread full preen, limbs bare to the touch, palms moist, foreheads glistening, lips parched, tongues hanging out, teeth gleaming like the advertisements, eyes bright, roving, stripping one bare ... piercing, penetrating eyes, some searching for gold, some for fuck, some to kill, but all bright, shamelessly, innocently bright like the lion's red maw, and pretending, yes, pretending, that it's a Saturday afternoon, a floor like any other floor, a cunt's a cunt, no tickee no fuckee, buy me, take me, squeeze me, all's well in Itchigumi, don't step on me, isn't it warm, yes, I love it, I do love it, bite me again, harder, harder...
Weaving in and out, sizing them up—height, weight, texture—rubbing flanks together, measuring bosoms, bottoms, waists, studying hair-dos, noses, stances, devouring mouths half open, closing others ... weaving, sidling, pushing, rubbing, and everywhere a sea of faces, a sea of flesh carved by scimitar strokes of light, the whole pack glued together in one vast terspichorean stew. And over this hot conglomerate flesh whirling in the cake bowl the smear of brasses, the wail of trombones, the coagulating saxophones, the piercing trumpets, all like liquid fire going straight to the glands. On the sidelines, standing like thirsty sentinels, huge upturned jugs of orangeade, lemonade, sarsparilla, coca-cola, root beer, the milk of she-asses and the pulp of wilted anemones. Above it all the almost inaudible hum of the ventilators sucking up the sour, rancid odor of flesh and perfume, passing it out over the heads of the passing throngs in the street.
Find some one! That was all I could think. But whom? I milled around and milled around, but nothing suited me. Some were wonderful, ravishing—as ass, so to say. I wanted something more. It was a bazaar, a bazaar of flesh—why not pick and choose? Most of them had the empty look of the empty souls they were. And why not, handling nothing but goods, money, labels, buttons, dishes, bills of lading, day in and day out? Should they have personality too? Some, like rapacious birds of the air, had that nondescript look of wrack tossed in by a storm— neither sluts, whores, shop girls nor griseldas. Some stood like wilted flowers or like canes draped in wet towels. Some, pure as chick-weed, looked as though they were hoping to be raped but not seriously damaged. The good live bait was on the floor, wiggling, wriggling, their eloquent haunches gleaming like moire.
In a corner beside the ticket booth the hostesses were collected. Bright and fresh they were, as if they had just stepped out of the tub. All beautifully coiffed, beautifully frocked. Waiting to be bought and, if luck would have it, wined and dined. Waiting for the right guy to come along, that jaded millionaire who in a moment of forgetfulness might propose marriage.
Standing at the rail I surveyed them coolly. If it were the Yoshiwara now ... If when you glanced their way they would undress, make a few obscene gestures, call to you in a raucous voice. But the Itchigumi follows a different program. It suggests that you very kindly and sincerely pick the flower of your choice, lead her to the center of the floor, bill and coo, nibble and gobble, wiggle and woggle, buy more tickets, take girl have drink, speak correctly, come again next week, choose ‘nother pretty flower, thank you kindly, good-night.
The music stops for a few moments and the dancers melt like snow-flakes. A girl in a pale yellow dress is gliding back to the slave booth. She looks Cuban. Rather short, well built, and with a mouth that's insatiable.
I wait a moment to give her a chance to dry off, as it were, then approach. She looks eighteen and fresh from the jungle. Ebony and ivory. Her greeting is warm and natural—no ready-made smile, no cash register business. She's new at the game, I find, and she is a Cuban. (How wonderful!) In short, she doesn't mind too much being pawed over, chewed to bits, etcetera; she's still mixing pleasure with business.
Pushed to the center of the floor, wedged in, we remain there moving like caterpillars, the censor fast asleep, the lights very low, the music creeping like a paid whore from chromosome to chromosome. The orgasm arrives and she pulls away for fear her dress will be stained.
Back at the barricade I'm trembling like a leaf. All I can smell now is cunt, cunt, cunt. No use dancing any more this afternoon. Must come again next Saturday. Why not?
And that's exactly what I do do. On the third Saturday I run into a newcomer at the slave booth. She has a marvelous body, and her face, chipped here and there like an ancient statue, excites me. She has a trifle more intelligence than the others, which is no detriment, and she's not hungry for money. That is simply extraordinary.
When she's not working I take her to a movie or to a cheap dance hall in some other neighborhood. Makes no difference to her where we go. Just bring a little booze along, that's all. Not that she wants to go blotto, no ... it makes things smoother, she thinks. She's a country girl from up-State.
Never any tension in her presence. Laughs easily, enjoys everything. When I take her home—she lives in a boarding house—we have to stand in the hallway and make as best we can. A nerve-racking business, what with the boarders coming and going all night long.
Sometimes, on leaving her, I ask myself how come I never hitched up with this sort, the easy going type, instead of the difficult ones? This gal hasn't an ounce of ambition; nothing bothers her, nothing worries her. She doesn't even worry about getting caught, as the saying goes. (Probably skillful with the darning needle.)
It doesn't take much thinking to realize that the reason I'm immune is because I'd be bored stiff in no time.
Anyway, there's little danger of my linking up with her in solid fashion. I'm a boarder myself, one not above pilfering change from the landlady's purse.
I said she had a marvelous physique, this fly by night. It's true. She was full and supple, limber, smooth as a seal. When I ran my hands over her buttocks it was enough to make me forget all my problems, Nietzsche, Stirner, Bakunin as well. As for her mug, if it wasn't exactly beautiful, it was attractive and arresting. Perhaps her nose was a trifle long, a trifle thick, but it suited her personality, suited that laughing cunt of hers, is what I mean. But the moment I began to make comparison between her body and Mona's I knew it was useless to go into it. Whatever flesh and blood qualities she had, this one, they remained flesh and blood. There was nothing more to her than what you could see and touch, hear and smell. With Mona it was another story entirely. Any portion of her body served to inflame me. Her personality was as much in her left teat, so to speak, as in her little right toe. The flesh spoke from every quarter, every angle. Strangely, hers was not a perfect body either. But it was melodious and provocative. Her body echoed her moods. She had no need to flaunt it or fling it about; she had only to inhabit it, to be it.
There was also this about Mona's body—it was constantly changing. How well I remember those days when we lived with the doctor and his family in the Bronx, when we always took a shower together, soaped one another, hugged one another, fucked as best we could—under the shower—while the cockroaches streamed up and down the walls like armies in full rout. Her body then, though I loved it, was out of line. The flesh drooped from her waist like folds, the breasts hung loose, the buttocks were too flat, too boyish. Yet that same body, draped in a stiff poker dot Swiss dress, had all the charm and allure of a soubrette's. The neck was full, a columnar neck, I always called it, and it suited the rich, dark, vibrant voice which issued from it. As the months and years went by this body went through all manner of changes. At times it grew taut, slender, drum-like. Almost too taut, too slender. And
