J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"Balthazar we'll go into your bedroom so we don't upset my bed."

Millicent taking a towel and passing through the dressing room. A breeze blowing against the curtain in my open window. And one of the most marvellous things in the world is to be in bed on a train speeding through the night time countryside after a hot summer day and have moist cool air blow through the sheets. I thought on a day such as this there must have been sun bathing nude in the garden. But now the sun was sinking and may have sunk. She takes off her slip and lays it across my pile of zoology books. Waits like women sit and wait in Paris antique shops, spiders in a web. I feel a little breeze under my armpits. Millicent standing there stark naked. A sight I have never seen. Her triangle of dark brown curly hair and her soft swell of belly and navel like a small inlaid ear. My eyes closed as I saw her breasts. To think all this time both those things have been there. Lips dry. No voice in me. She beckons me with her finger. There are big 336 leeches in the River Eure flowing through Chartres. Mind runs riot. I'm tempted to call for a taxi to take me across this carpet. Feel like an Algerian trying to sell a piece of Africa in an empty side street. With the vision now of all my trustees seated round. Intoning in ecclesiastic voices, the Lord blesses the dead who have done the brave thing instead of the smart. They take out pencil and paper. To make a proper record of proceedings. Mr. B has presented his member expanded to eighteen centimeters and the opposite partner in the marriage has not yet screamed. Mr. Pleader with opera glasses, Mr. Horn with callipers and Hoot with racing form. My mirror there. Where there is so much to see. As she leans right down and grabs it with her mouth. I stand with nervous hands at my side at attention. Looking down on her gleaming brown head of hair. Uncle Edouard said for something which is priceless a woman should charge nothing. Paid such a price already until this change in her. Tanned all over by the infra red of her bathroom ceiling. And sometimes away racing in the afternoon, I had visions of all her former admirers beating a path to the door. Drinking one's wines and gobbling down the caviar. Hands all over one's undressed wife. The lover's bare toes twiddling the knobs of my gramophone. The mysterious little absences one noticed among the wine bins. Which make me wonder now. How much blowing could go on without my knowing. Millicent carries her arse as if it were the last one on earth. Shops all through the morning till she needs a rest and goes to a shoe emporium to sit and buy shoes. The cold clarity of her nudity makes me thank God I have eye lids to close. Times she sat when I looked at her. All she wants to do is go out and dance in front of the world. Far from the cooking carrots and undusted window sills. To rush to a fitting for a brassiere. Why worry. There are still some immortal mistakes I cherish. Let the brain steam. And trustees record that it's now in her mouth. Beefy knows exactly when not to wear white shoes. And the postal boundaries all over London. Those where one can safely walk with holes in the socks and find cads who use brown envelopes. The boundary stone set in the curving sidewalk of Pembridge Square and Moscow Road. Where and when Beefy winces as he steps into Paddington. The world never knows you're so lonely. When you're leaning by some dark iron railings outside a slightly opened window. Listening to piano playing. Uncle Edouard said people look for arse when they look for art. And a little band of ruffians with a baby carriage walked by with a tame goose waddling after them. They looked for money and I gave them half a crown. I would stand solemn and prolonged at that red and brown brick world, transfixed by Sloane Street, Pont Street and Beauchamp Place. The white cheese cloth behind the polished windows, the turrets and transoms on the rooftops, the blackened tiles on the gables. And up high the odd weather vane veering above the whining traffic. I can't believe it's going into her down through the soft moist parting between her legs. As she gives out a frightening long howling groan. With the trace of a smile. Heard all over Knightsbridge. Never knew it meant so much to her. Been glad to slip it in before. Stayed by the hand of protocol and ceremony and broken collar bone. Gained in my first attempt. One is taught to be so nice. Wait till asked. Don't do that. And get nothing for the hesitation. When people seem to like it better if you elbow them around. I told her to shut up. I was just as aghast as she. Groans getting even louder now. What on earth am I doing to her. Playing a dirge down her nervous cord. The whole neighbourhood listening to the notes. And it's getting that kind of dark when the world can hear you pull your penis. The same one that Beefy said his building mate stained green on St. Patrick's Day. Now that I've got it in must make no mistakes, yet no one gets to the grave without tripping a few times. Her legs locked around my waist. Ankles waving her feet I see in the mirror. She must be a woman. But will never flick a spud into the boiling water. Or take needle to one's flies. With a wrist flicking beat up a mayonnaise. But she is as Beefy said, by merely shifting her hind quarter fractionally abaft, taking one's noble carboniferous tool eight miles up her Jeroboam. This Wednesday. A 338 chime from my study clock below. The groans roll out longer and louder from her parted lips. Echoing back across the gardens. Voices below. Each thrust a sound peals out. Her legs wrapped around me like two snakes. When you think she's mad. Someone you've never met before. She strolled out today between the parsons in gaiters and much purple cloth. I saw a big blue prison van go by with the eyes staring out from the little windows. And uniforms passing out the Palace gates where one might ask not the rank but what's your nation. A smile on Millicent's face. Where whenever I close my eyes. Is it you Fitzdare. As I come near where I will go diving diving down. Parting air with my hands. Brushing away Dublin raindrops. Hear bells ringing. Just like a front door. I told Mil-licent's mother I would on no account have chimes to be modern. A bell would do. She said do forgive me. I did and it was another invitation to come charging in with all her friends just to say hello we've only time for a drink. But after two they always stayed for three or four. And later I was handed the whopping bill at a restaurant. Followed by the warnings of one's trustees. Dear Mr. B, for the sake of future reserves we would advise some restraint in current expenditure. Who knows one day one might have heirs. As o my God I go with everything crashing into her. And she gives out with a long echoing howl and one hears the ringing and ringing of bells. World falls down. A dust rises up. Voices saying, I say there, I say there, you in there, we are citizens out here. And you will be punctured at the end of her last long piercing groan. Tightening and swallowing the length of my organ. Tell Beefy what the nude male pictures with white gloves have done. And the voices who cry out I say there, in there and murder most foul. What. What murder. Whose are those noises. And the knocks on the dressing room door. A voice says do we have to break it down. Good Lord. What's this. Don't get nervous. The nightmare continues. Sound of fiddling of keys. In Millicent's automatic lock to keep me out. And a knock and hands hammering now. Balthazar B unravelling from his wife's arms and legs, rolling from the bed and standing up. Crossing the purple carpet to the dressing room door. To say to the other side press the button on the lock. And it opens slightly ajar. For there are. Distinctly people there. A nearby strange face with grey hair.

"Sir, there are gurglings going on somewhere."

"What."

"Gurglings, we've heard gurglings and groans."