Russell Banks - Outer Banks

7.

In defense of himself, the ballboy changed his story and said that he’d made up the part about the funny-looking hat with the geraniums in it and the tan suede boots and the moustache and even the accent with all the flat As. But it availed him nothing. The princes pelted him with handballs, badminton birdies, medicine balls, and basketballs. They even fell to rolling a shot put at his feet, aiming for the arches. They were disturbed.

8.

The king fucked the queen on two successive nights, keeping the lights on throughout copulation on both occasions. He was obviously disturbed.

9.

— I like a plucky faggot, he breathlessly confided to the queen after each of her orgasms. After his own, however, he remained silent.

10.

The queen, pondering both his remark and the timing of his silences, had difficulty sleeping. At breakfast following their second night of love, she asked her husband, — Have you ever performed a sex act with a man? Or with a boy?

— My dear, he answered. — I once caught and screwed a loon. Unforgettable! Jesus, I had an appetite! he bellowed, heading swiftly for court.

11.

The three princes were already there, waiting nervously for him to arrive. They wanted to know beforehand how the king was going to handle this one. In this matter, they each had a private ambition for the king’s policy. The oldest son was named Orgone. He was a well-known wrestler and bachelor. The second son, Dread, drove sports cars and was a big-game hunter. The third prince was named Egress (the Wild), a bad drunk, melancholy, a favorite of those fallen from grace of any kind. He was rumored to be dying of consumption. He kept a brace of fighting cocks and a kennel of Staffordshire pit bull terriers and wrote very successful, leather-rock song lyrics.

12.

The story is about all these people, then: the queen, of course, and the king, the youth in the slick green suit, Orgone, Dread, young Egress, and the loon. The queen’s name was Naomi Ruth, the king’s name was Egress (the Hearty, sometimes the Bluff). The youth in the slick green suit had many names, all, as it will later turn out, aliases. And the loon was called Loon, sometimes Lone, Lon, Lonnie, l’ Ange, Lawn, Lune.

1.

Naomi Ruth languished alone among the gin-and-tonics afternoon after afternoon. Oh, she knew she was a card, but who was there to enjoy it? Besides, she never hit her stride till after three P.M. and her fourth gin-and-tonic, and by then everyone else was at court. Except, of course, for the servants, whose rapt attention had thankfully been guaranteed by their station.

2.

She told the slender, hard-muscled wine steward everything she could recall of her childhood — gazebos, cupolas, domesticated animals with names like Donkey, Fru-fru, Fluff, and Jingle, her friendly father’s ruddy face as he swung her over his white-haloed head, brushing her back against the cloudless sky, meadows strewn with dipping daisies, golden twilights, lemonade, Mamma, Dilsey, Bubber…

— Jesus, Your Majesty, you’re a card! the steward laughed, wiping away tears. — I mean it, he said, suddenly serious.

— Do you? Do you really ? she queried intently. — I mean, do you really think that?

— Yeah. You’re a right-on queen. Want another drink?

— Why the hell not? she answered throatily. — Pour.

3.

Sprawled naked across the wine steward, her white body splayed like a fallen birch, she asked him, in a detached, impersonal way, as if she were asking herself — What if you were afraid that your husband was gay? Assuming you had a husband, of course. What would you do ? What would you feel ? she asked herself.

— Well, the steward answered. — You just never know about these things. I mean, I once knew this rabbi who surprised everyone by going into his father’s business. A coat manufacturer. It’s like that.

4.

The wine steward, lighting both their cigarettes with a single match, to Naomi Ruth, the two of them lying on their backs on the llama skins that covered the floor, — Lots of men switch careers in mid-career, as it were. A lot depends on the man’s P-factor, the amount of pain he can endure, if you know what I mean. The important thing is that he discuss it with his family and loved ones, even though his decision ultimately may be autocratic. I mean, in the end, it’s how you present these things that counts. I say this, Your Highness, because I know you are capable of great forgiveness. For instance, I once knew a priest who became a psychiatrist. Turned out he was happy as a priest, when a priest, and he was happy as a psychiatrist, too, when a psychiatrist, if you know what I mean. So you really never know. Take me, for instance. I may be nothing but a wine steward now, and I’m happy being one, believe me, but I know, if my P-factor is high enough, that I could be happy as, for instance, court chamberlain, say. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy as a wine steward, however. No, ma’am, not at all. That’s the important part of my notion, but the other part’s important, too, of course…

5.

Naomi Ruth wasn’t very interested in the wine steward’s observations. She was interested in his sexual organ. — What do you think is the meaning of life? she demanded.

He shrugged helplessly, as if to say, What can a poor wine steward know?

The queen wept bitter, angry tears. She pounded the pillows with her tiny fists.

He kept shrugging helplessly, trying to look stupid. What a drag, he thought. A fucking drag.

6.

Finally, the queen got the wine steward’s rather large and fortunately erect cock loosened and into her, and she rode him like a log, whooping and slapping him loudly on his hairy, white thighs. For most of the afternoon, they bumped and shoved each other wildly about the room, knocking over furniture, tipping bottles of liquor and perfume, spilling the contents onto the thickly carpeted floor, and sliding with slick rumps across magazines, satin sheets, candy boxes shaped like hearts, velvet-covered love-seats, taffeta gowns, crinolines, silk underwear, a closet floor cobbled with dancing slippers, Turkish towels, talcum, facial greases, squirts of urine, bits of feces, scents, daubs and smears until, eventually, she passed out and he, exhausted and fearful, slipped out and quickly away to the servants’ quarters.

7.

Naomi Ruth felt no guilt. Anger. Only anger. Mainly at the king, but also at the Loon, whoever that one was. Some kind of freak, she thought. Some kind of sicko freak. Her heart aching with loathing and revulsion, she broke her thumbs with a small instrument of torture.

— Ai-yee! she cried.

8.

What the hell’s going on down there? she wondered, meaning the court.

— Today’s the big day! the king had informed her that morning at breakfast.

Sensing a significance in the remark, she put her coffee cup onto the saucer noisily and said, — Big day for what? What’s going on? Why am I being left out of things all the time? I never find out about anything until after it’s happened or been decided. What’s going on today? What’s the occasion? Who’s coming? Why don’t you tell me what happens down there before it has already happened? Do you think that I’m stupid or something? A child? Do you think that all I can do is ask questions? Is that why you leave me out of the only life around here that’s worth living? Is it? Is it? she asked.

He looked up from his newspaper and grinned. — What was the question? he asked.

— Bastid! she hissed to no one in particular. That was when she asked him whether or not he had ever performed a sex act with a man, or a boy.

9.

— Maybe I should try writing a novel, she suggested. A love story, like Cinderella or The Song of Solomon.