Martin Amis - Dead Babies

She walk fast into room, turn, take off shirt, slip down she jeans, no pants, take she breast in she hand. On bed. "Come here." He go, he kneel, she mouth over he lip. She push he back on bed, climb up front of he to kneel across he shoulder, grip he ear to press to she pubis. Straddle he lap then. Undo he shirt, shinny down he trousers next. He sit up sudden take off he boot, she lick he back and she lick he under arm. He lie down she climb onto he again for tug he hair, drive sheself up he face. She swivel full circle, bend forward. She draw he genital into she mouth and gimmick she perineum to he face so good. She urinate some. She climb down he body so lick he thigh. She get she finger, grind it to it root up he anus. He defecate some. She press she nail into he hip, drag breast up he leg, feed on his penis. He head stretch back in long silent scream.

As Andy slipped down the stairs, Quentin loomed out of the passage shadows. Together they stole into the kitchen.

"A good one?"

"Fuckin' marvelous," said Andy, dusting his palms. "I don't know why people bother with anything else — I really don't. I was practically bent double."

"Guess what's happening?"

"Lemme see. Skip's fucking Mrs. Tuckle."

"Wrong. Roxeanne is fucking little Keith!"

"Quentin," said Andy, "call the police."

"To arrest Keith?"

"To arrest Roxeanne. What kind of pervert can we have up there? Keith!"

"No, it's true."

"Don't be disgusting, man. I mean, it's not that I'm shocked; I just don't happen to think it's particularly funny, is all."

"It's true, Andy. No one else would, so little Keith volunteered."

Andy threw his head back in a roar of dark, anarchical laughter. "Keith! That shape!"

"If shape it could be called that shape had none."

"Still, you know, you've got to give her credit. Come on, man, you have. Anyway, what difference does it make in the end? You get used to all kinds of shit." Andy wagged his head at the sitting-room door. "What gives in there?"

"Not a great deal, as it happens. Skip's trying to pull Lucy, who appears to be trying to pull, or at any rate solace, Giles. And — well — Marvell's trying to pull Diana… I

oughtn't to have mentioned it. He's having small success."

"I don't give a pig's rig. I talked to Diana this afternoon. We're forgetting it." "No, really?”

"Yeah. I just fuckin' told her, was all. No sweat."

"How did she take it?"

"Well, it completely cracked her up. Course. But the fuck, you know? Hadda happen."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Andy."

"Relax."

"And tell me — what devilment are you planning now?"

"Nah. " Andy was about to shrug deprecatingly, but then his face cleared and became quizzical. "I. "

"You're feeling it, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am, actually."

"It's quite impossible to describe, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It is."

It started strangely. Not with a rush or a jolt, but as if it had always been there. The rosewood of the kitchen table seemed to have faded into a weak pastel brown. The blue and yellow tiles on the ceiling had receded and blurred so that its pattern was no longer distinct. Even the plain white of the walls appeared to have become something more washy, more neutral. Color had begun to drain from the house.

Andy had just sat himself down on the sofa and poured himself a sextuple Benedictine when Roxeanne came into the sitting room. He banged down his drink and hurried toward her. Marvell and Skip got to their feet.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Did it happen?"

"Did what happen?"

Andy's shoulders went slack. "Okay, I asked you nice. Now did you fuck him or didn't you fuck him?"

"I didn't fuck him." Roxeanne nodded to Marvell and Skip. They moved toward the door. Skip was rolling up his right sleeve. Marvell's fingers toyed with his belt buckle.

Andy wheeled round. "What's.?"

Waving Skip and Marvell on, Roxeanne said to Andy, "He

couldn't get a hard-on. And he threw up. It's not girls he likes."

"When we get in there," Marvell was telling Skip as they left the room, "don't fuck around. Just get his fuckin' legs and—"

Andy gestured hesitantly at the closed door. He turned to Roxeanne. "What's going on?"

Roxeanne sat down. She looked hot and very angry indeed, but her voice remained calm, even rather piano. "I'm getting some theories about this house. There's no one in it knows how to fuck right." She sighed. "What they're going to do, Andy, is: Marvell's just going to screw him — okay — but Skip's gonna fist-fuck him first. Got it?"

"Fist-fu— You mean — right up the.?"

Roxeanne placed her straight right hand on the inside crook of her left elbow. "Fist-fuck," she said.

"All that? Up the. right in his…?" Andy placed his arm obliquely across his stomach. It went from his hip bone to his solar plexus. He stared at Lucy and Diana. "But it can't. He's only little. It'll go right up to his— It'll fuck him all up."

Roxeanne reached for the liquor bottle. "Skip told me that after the initial tightness it goes all sort of hollow," she said matter-of-factly. "It all sort of… gives, you know? It does no permanent damage. It's amazing what people can get away with these days."

Andy stared flinching at the door. A thin, insect scream had joined the sounds of violent struggle from above.

"That fat little fuck," said Roxeanne.

Marvell bent down to zip up his boot. "That bastard Archie," he said.

"Yeah," said Skip, pulling a T-shirt over his head. "What was he trying to pull?"

"Last time I go to that shiteater. He can't do that to me, he knows that. It'll finish him. Time to retire."

"Maybe," droned Skip as he buckled his belt, "maybe it was some kinda, like a joke. I mean, the other movies, they were okay."

"Maybe, fuck. It was a hundred, same as the rest. That cocksucker. Shirley Temple I want I go to the movie library."

Skip leaned in front of a suitcase. Suddenly he let out a roar of consternation and outrage. Marvell shivered. Then he remembered that the letter from Skip's father was safely in Quentin's keeping.

"What is it?”

"A motherfuckin'— Come here, Mar. Take a fuckin' look at that."

Marvell crossed the room, straightening the collar of his shirt. Skip motioned limply at the suitcase. Among a knot of tightly packed clothes was a spilt bottle of yellow nail varnish.

"At least it's colorless," said Marvell.

"How many, how many times? I fuckin' told her."

Marvell clicked his tongue. "Yeah, well don't tangle with her right now about it. I know Rox and I know when she's getting impatient."

Skip turned. "Yeah? Any ideas for next?"

"Some." Marvell drove his hands through his hair. "Some. How's the drug doing?"

"Kinda scary. I like it."

"C'mon. Let's go."

At the far end of the room, between the bed and the wardrobe, was a pile of blankets, sheets, and clothes. Inside it was a motionless lump. That was Whitehead.

During the Americans' twenty-minute absence from the sitting room Celia joined in her husband's wholly successful attempt to restore calm to the room, to moderate Roxeanne's rebarba-tiveness to the odd aside, to reduce Andy's climbing temper to a rubble of imprecation. Nor was it Villiers' superb diplomatic skills alone that softened the atmosphere. The mood of the room was one of growing introspection, of cold solipsism, and things were passing them by.

Celia herself was having a good time. In gradual, succulent stages, she was re-experiencing all the joy and security of her recent months with Quentin-the farcically beautiful Hamlet beside her — reliving each declension of the tender and exquisite deliverance his love had been. But it was also going, all this; she was falling away too — tumbling slowly from the present, the present that Quentin so notably adorned — falling away to the isolation and contingency of a life without him. Celia thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She swiveled to meet it but her mind kept slipping back to… to I do beach him straightaway but didn't get free used up The Mandarin best to be good friends told her grapefruit: what money could do and their bodies with bastards pricks shits eat a lot be alone and you're Celia.