William Faulkner - Mosquitoes

“Oh, yes. Well, we was at the Market. There was big crowd there because it was Sunday night, see, and these other fellows was there. One of them was a snappy-looking fellow, and I kind of looked at him. Pete had stopped in a place to get some cigarettes, and me and Thelma and Roy was crowded in with a lot of folks, having coffee. So I kind of looked at this goodlooking fellow.”

“Yes. You kind of looked at him. Go on.”

“All right. And so this good looking fellow crowded in behind me and started talking to me. There was a man in between me and Roy, and this fellow that was talking to me said, Is he with you? talking about the man sitting next to me, and I said, No, I didn’t know who he was. And this fellow said, How about coming out with him because he had his car parked outside. . Pete’s brother has a lot of cars. One of them is the same as Pete’s. . And then. . Oh, yes, and I said, where will we go, because my old man didn’t like for me to go out with strangers, and the fellow said he wasn’t a stranger, that anybody could tell me who some name was, I forgot what it was he said his name was. And I said he better ask Pete if I could go, and he said, Who was Pete? Well, the,e was a big man standing near where we was. He was big as a stevedore, and just then this big man happened to look at me again. He looked at me a minute, and I kind of knew that he’d look at me again pretty soon, so I told this fellow talking to me that he was Pete, and when the big man looked somewheres else a minute this fellow said that to me. And then the big man looked at me again, and the fellow that said that to me kind of went away. So I got up and went to where Thelma and Roy was, and pretty soon Pete came back. And that’s how I learned it.”

“Well, it sure sounds good. I wonder — Say, let me say it sometimes, will you?”

“All right,” Jenny agreed. “You can have it. Say, what’s that you keep telling your aunt? something about pulling up the sheet or something?” The niece told her. “That sounds good, too,” Jenny said magnanimously.

“Does it? I tell you what: You let me use yours sometime, and you can take mine. How about it?”

“All right,” Jenny agreed again, “it’s a trade.”

Water lapped and whispered ceaselessly in the pale darkness. The curve of the low ceiling directly over the berth lent a faint sense of oppression to the cabin, but this sense of oppression faded out into the comparatively greater spaciousness of the room, of the darkness with a round orifice vaguely in the center of it. The moon was higher and the lower curve of the brass rim of the port was now a thin silver sickle, like a new moon.

Jenny moved again, turning against the other’s side, breathing ineffably across the niece’s face. The niece lay with Jenny’s passive nakedness against her arm, and moving her arm outward from the elbow she slowly stroked the back of her hand along the swell of Jenny’s flank. Slowly, back and forth, while Jenny lay supine and receptive as a cat. Slowly, back and forth and back. . “I like flesh,” the niece murmured. “Warm and smooth. Wish I’d lived in Rome. . oiled gladiators. . Jenny,” she said abruptly, “are you a virgin?”

“Of course I am,” Jenny answered immediately in a startled tone. She lay for a moment in lax astonishment. “I mean,” she said, “I — yes. I mean, yes, of course I am.” She brooded in passive, surprise, then her body lost its laxness. “Say—”

“Well,” the niece agreed judicially, “I guess that’s about what I’d have said, myself.”

“Say,” demanded Jenny, thoroughly aroused, “what did you ask me that for?”

“Just to see what you’d say. It doesn’t make any difference, you know, whether you are or not. I know lots of girls that say they’re not. I don’t think all of ’em are lying, either.”

“Maybe it don’t to some folks,” Jenny rejoined primly, “but I don’t approve of it. I think a girl loses a man’s respect by pom — prom — I don’t approve of it, that’s all. And I don’t think you had any right to ask me.”

“Good Lord, you sound like a Girl Scout or something. Don’t Pete ever try to persuade you otherwise?”

“Say, what’re you asking me questions like that for?”

“I just wanted to see what you’d say. I don’t think it’s anything to tear your shirt over. You’re too easily shocked, Jenny,” the niece informed her.

“Well, who wouldn’t be? If you want to know what folks say when you ask ’em things like that, why don’t you ask ’em to yourself? Did anybody ever ask you if you were one?”

“Not that I know of. But I wou—”

“Well, are you?”

The niece lay perfectly still a moment. “Am I what?”

“Are you a virgin?”

“Why, of course I am,” she answered sharply. She raised herself on her elbow. “I mean — Say, look here—”

“Well, that’s what I’d ’a’ said, myself,” Jenny responded with placid malice from the darkness.

The niece poised on her tense elbow above Jenny’s sweet regular breathing. “Anyway, what bus — I mean — You asked me so quick,” she rushed on, “I wasn’t even thinking about being asked something like that.”

“Neither was I. You asked me quicker than I asked you.”

“But that was different. We were talking about you being one. We were not even thinking about me being one. You asked it so quick I had to say that. It wasn’t fair.”

“So did I have to say what I said. It was as fair for you as it was for me.”

“No, it was different. I had to say I wasn’t: quick, like that.”

“Well, I’ll ask it when you’re not surprised, then. Are you?”

The niece lay quiet for a time. “You mean, sure enough?”

“Yes.” Jenny breathed her warm intent breath across the other’s face.

The niece lay silent again. After a time she said, “Hell,” and then: “Yes, I am. It’s not worth lying about.”

“That’s what I think,” Jenny agreed smugly. She became placidly silent in the darkness. The other waited a moment, then said sharply:

“Well? Are you one?”

“Sure I am.”

“I mean, sure enough. You said sure enough, didn’t you?”

“Sure, I am,” Jenny repeated.

“You’re not playing fair,” the niece accused, “I told you.”

“Well, I told you, too.”

“Honest? You swear?”

“Sure, I am,” Jenny said again with her glib and devastating placidity.

The niece said, “Hell.” She snorted thinly.

They lay quiet, side by side. They were quiet on deck, too, but it seemed as though there still lingered in the darkness a thin stubborn ghost of syncopation and thudding tireless feet. Jenny wiggled her free toes with pleasure. Presently she said:

“You’re mad, ain’t you?” No reply. “You’ve got a good figure, too,” Jenny, offered, conciliatory. “I think you’ve got a right sweet, little shape.”

But the other refused to be cajoled. Jenny sighed again ineffably, her milk-and-honey breath. She said, “Your brother’s a college boy, ain’t he? I know some college boys. Tulane. I think college boys are cute. They don’t dress as well as Pete. . sloppy.” She mused for a time. “I wore a frat pin once, for a couple of days. I guess your brother belongs to it, don’t he?”

“Gus? Belong to one of these jerkwater clubs? I guess not. He’s a Yale man — he will be next month, that is. I’m going with him. They don’t take every Tom, Dick, and Harry that shows up in up there. You have to wait until sophomore year. But Gus is going to work for a senior society, anyhow. He don’t think much of fraternities. Gee, you’d sure give him a laugh if he could hear you.”

“Well, I didn’t know. It seems to me one thing you join is about like another. What’s he going to get by joining the one he’s going to join?”