Nelson Algren - A Walk on the Wild Side

A silence in which she ached to cross her ankles behind his back on that same good hard bed. And leaned her head on her hands, made half sick by that natural goodness of body and heart she had been taught was mortal sin.

‘ En Jesus tengo paz ,’ she tried to pray the good hard bed away.

No warm-ups , the sign behind her warned: No wee bits .

While on the bed Dove waited for her.

He came downstairs at last swinging the swatter disconsolately, hung it where it belonged and pushed out the door.

‘Now I give you pie,’ she tried to call him back.

He spat through his teeth to lay all dust and was gone.

Gone in the silver end of day under a sky emptied of the last pelican.

Terasina abandoned her friend on the wall that night. It was no night for virgins, that was all.

Closed inside and shuttered out, alone in the shuttered dark she heard a small clock say ‘sick sick sick’; a prim little clock alone as herself yearning the small second hand around for the long silken lunge that could ease her. For the stroke to fill the wellsprings of her unused delight.

What a devilish kind of clock, to tick and tick as if minutes spent lying chastely alone were the only actual sin.

She breathed in a season without sound, not a breath of wind nor cricket to chirp. But only a clock offering alibis for playing the beast with a boy half her age.

Till the very stillness took pity, and sleep tossed her about for a while.

Wearing a low-backed evening gown of midnight blue spangled with green sequins but disgustingly smeared with chocolate, she asked ‘Which way to the church?’ of an elegant little humpbacked gentleman in black tie and tails, – ‘I wish to become a nun today.’

‘I am a great admirer of nuns,’ the elegant little gentleman assured her, and bowed even lower, ‘in fact, my father was Bishop of Seville. Our family knew yours well, Señora.’

‘Sire,’ she replied respectfully, ‘our family and yours descend from Cortez. Perhaps you remember my father?’

‘Of course. He was a lame pimp from Puebla.’

‘There has always been a good pimp in our family,’ she reported with quiet pride.

‘There has always been a good whore in ours,’ he boasted modestly in turn. ‘Perhaps you remember my mother?’

‘Who could forget that royal lady who kept the pool tables where one might sleep for no more than the price of three games? How is she?’

But before she could hear how the royal lady fared the dream trailed off and she lost her way to the church.

She was sitting in her black lace slip, on the bed’s edge, the following morning when Dove pushed in, both arms heaped with firewood for an excuse, without troubling to knock.

‘Take the doors down,’ she told him, ‘we don’t need them any more.’

He evaded her eyes, yet her own stayed hard upon him: she saw the hand holding the match tremble slightly, waiting for the flame to take hold. When it took, the weaving light flowered down his countrified face.

Then within her a valentine of gladness struggled bravely up, there was no use denying fire.

‘You come to me here you,’ she ordered him, and he came to stand at attention like a summoned private. Looking past her shoulders at something outside; prepared for any order. Submitting himself so completely that it came to her heart sweetly as an old revenge.

She pushed the suitcase slyly with her toes until it touched his own.

‘Why do you stand so? Do you expect me to decorate you for bravery?’

‘Never been in no army, m’am.’

‘Why not? So afraid of being a soldier?’

‘Aint afraid to soldier. Never been asked.’

‘I see. Afraid only of Terasina.’

‘I respect you most mightily, m’am.’

‘Then you have changed mightily since yesterday. Then your hand did not respect me’ – abruptly she seized both his hands in hers, turned them palm upward and flung them from her in feigned dismay – ‘Why! The very same. Only dirtier by a day. Why do you always disappoint me?’

The stove door opened and blew an orange-colored passion across his face. His face so young yet so old.

‘Don’t intend to disappoint you, m’am.’ And in the arm he placed about her she felt a commanding gentleness.

‘What is a woman to do with such a cunning man?’ then waited for him to begin apologizing and so spoil everything.

Instead he hauled her shoulder straps down as though he had paid for her clothes, cleared her of everything to her waist, and made her lean against him. Then lifted her breast to study it: a brown melon tipped with pink. Apparently satisfied with that one, he replaced it and studied the other.

‘It’s the same,’ she assured him. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, useless cunning man?’

For answer, Useless gave her breasts an approving squeeze.

‘Ready for crating,’ he told her. Then the touch of his lips made her eyes come wet as his hands went gently wild. In a kiss that went on and on, in an everlasting kiss. Till her eyes that had darkened with desire now lighted in electric bliss.

His hide-tight jeans and her black lace slip lay tangled inextricably on the floor. ‘ Empuje ’ and her arms drew him down and in. Compressing her pleasure till she threshed for release. He eased the pressure then; precisely as slowly as he had pressed.

And began a kind of controlled abandon that made her half marvel and half mourn at all she’d missed – ‘So slow. I did not know, I did not know.’

Right to the precipice’s edge he brought her, letting her subside only to draw her yet closer to the brink. Prolonging her pleasure till it verged on pain. Then, needing to rid herself of all this, locked him more fiercely in, beat at his chest with both her fists, and upon the peak, with one flame-like thrust, fell and fell in a weightless delight released from all pleasure, all pain.

Down and down in a dream of falling where nothing lived but two far-off voices in a Mindanao Deep of peace, some bottomless depth of perfect rest. Hearing a man’s slow-drawn breath and a woman’s grateful sobbing.

Till somebody’s hands lightly wandered her face and she realized remotely it was her own eyes someone was trying to dry. Tears were sealing them.

After the moment of joy, he had had that deep pang of guilt that lasts less long than the flesh hangs limp, and is gone, good riddance to it.

Her hands traced his back to show she understood, though she understood nothing at all. Then fell languidly away. Terasina Vidavarri slept like a great baby then.

‘I don’t know what kind of great I’m bound to be,’ Dove considered his prospects calmly, ‘all I know for certain is I’m a born world-shaker.’

And drew on his hide-tight jeans like a victor.

The born world-shaker was tying an apron around his waist, preparing to clean up pans and pots, when he saw Byron hurrying barefoot through the dust. Certainly didn’t take long for word to get around this shite-poke town. Dove had just time to snatch a cigarillo from the tobacco counter and light it for courage before Byron pushed in and looked around. In the dappled gloom of early morning he wasn’t able to see a thing.

‘Mornin’, Byron,’ Dove introduced himself.

‘Mornin’, Dove.’

‘Do anythin’ for you this mornin’?’

‘Reckon not. Just happen to be passin’ by.’

‘Care for coffee?’

‘I’m a mite low in funds.’

Dove drew the coffee. ‘On the house. Sweet roll?’

‘Mighty kind of you, Dove. Mighty kind. It appear you’re makin’ it pretty good.’

‘I’m makin’ it.’

‘How’s Dolores Del Rio?’

‘I didn’t mean makin’ in that particular sense’ – Dove got a good strong whiff of danger – ‘I just work here, Byron.’