John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"I will kill him, Max!" I vowed.

But Anastasia bade me hear her out. What Stoker's proposition came to, it developed, had not even the technical respectability of marriage: she was to become upon his completion of Ira's business, the mistress of Stoker's every whim and craving — the which, he hinted darkly, were as infinite in number as they were bestial in character.

"It was a terrible spot to be in," she said. "If Uncle Ira said no , he'd lose his business and have to admit he was generous at heart; if he said yes, he'd lose me — and he really did need me — and probably hate himself besides for what he'd done. I wanted to decide for him, so he wouldn't have to blame himself; but I didn't know which to choose either, I loved them both so…"

"You loved them?" I cried, and Max, equally astonished, said, "Stoker too yet!"

"Well, you know what I mean: he was really terribly upset! It was perfectly plain to me he just needed somebody to get things out of his system with, and he was as afraid of showing it as Uncle Ira was. Why do you suppose men are that way?"

I was sure I didn't know.

"Anyhow, I couldn't say a word, and neither could Uncle Ira, and Maurice wouldn't. He walked out of the study with this set look on his face, and Uncle Ira and I kind of followed after, as if we could've been going up to our rooms or out for a walk or anything. We ended up out front where Maurice's motorcycle was, and it seemed to me Uncle Ira must have been wanting me to go with Maurice, or he would have made me stay in the house. Or maybe he thought I was leading the way, I don't know. Anyhow Maurice got on the motorcycle and started up, and everybody kind of hesitated, and it didn't seem to me there was anything I could do then but go with him; everybody seemed to be waiting for me. I don't remember deciding: one minute I was standing with Uncle Ira, the next I was in Maurice's sidecar and off we were going, just like the wind, and Maurice threw back his head and laughed!"

She tisked her mouth-corner. "That was a couple of years ago. And you know, he did keep his word to Uncle Ira, even though in a way he didn't have to — I mean, since he had me anyhow. I think that was very good of him, don't you? There's something really decent about Maurice, way down deep."

"Deep is right," Max said. His voice was hushed with appall. Recalling the distressed young co-eds of legend, I assumed she had been kept prisoner since that fateful day — her husband being after all the warden of Main Detention — and fervently offered my services to the end of freeing her, by force if necessary. But Anastasia was merely amused by my suggestion: she was no prisoner at all, she declared; on the contrary, she came and went from their lodgings at the Power Plant quite as she pleased — witness her position in the NTC Psych Clinic — and was persuaded Stoker would not restrain her should she ever choose to leave him permanently. However, he had after all married her, "in a way" (she did not explain in what way), at her insistence, and she didn't mean to shirk her conjugal obligations. Moreover, he needed her ever so much more than her Uncle Ira had.

"Then all that talk of mistreating you was just to scare you for some reason?" I asked. "I'm glad to hear that ! Aren't you, Max?"

"Who's heard it?"

"Now don't jump to conclusions ," Anastasia pleaded. "Just because Maurice's needs are different doesn't mean they're not as important to him as the regular ones are to most men."

"What he needs is to be wicked as the Dean o' Flunks!" Max said passionately. "He needs to wreck and hurt, so you let him wreck and hurt you, ja ?"

"You don't have to look at it that way, Dr. Spielman," the girl insisted — but added immediately that of course he could if he wanted to, if it was important to him…

What I myself wanted was to hear exactly what sort of abuses Anastasia suffered, willingly or otherwise. But I had no opportunity to ask, for at her last remark Max virtually burst with compassion.

"Look here once, child!" He touched her sandal with his hand and pointed to his eyes. "I'm not your poppa, and I never was! Don't I wish I had been and Virginia Hector your momma? Flunk Ira Hector he ever laid his nasty hand on you! Flunk all those boys took advantage of you! But flunk Maurice Stoker most of all, that beast from South Exit, he'd never have laid eyes on you if I was your poppa!"

"I'm not blaming you," Anastasia reminded him.

"You don't blame nobody nothing!" Max shouted. "I know I'm not your poppa because I can't be nobody's poppa: I had an accident with the WESCAC twenty-some years ago." He had purposely not mentioned this fact to Virginia or her father, he explained more calmly, because in thus exculpating himself he'd have convicted her, and robbed her moreover of the chance to volunteer the truth of his innocence.

"And it's not to escape any blame I'm telling you now," he declared. "You got to know I never was your poppa so you'll hate me for the right things. Eblis Eierkopf — he was your poppa, girl, and flunk him he never owned up to it! But flunk me too; flunk me twice I didn't swallow my pride and marry Virginia, she'd have stayed off the bottle and you'd have never been spanked and the rest! Don't you dare forgive me that!"

Anastasia's face was full of tenderness. "It's hard not to! The way you must have suffered all these years!" She sounded almost envious; then a frowning wonder darkened her eyes. "Mother did used to work with Dr. Eierkopf, but I never dreamed …"

"It's not good news," Max sympathized.

She shook her head. "I didn't mean it that way. But he's not very… nice, you know? No wonder, being a cripple and all — I'm sure I'd be twice as disagreeable if I had to depend on Croaker for everything! When I think of all the times he and Croaker have come by the Clinic, and me not dreaming he was my father! I could've been so much nicer to him than I was!"

Max clapped his head. For myself, I was too busy steadying Croaker, the mention of whose name had made him ominously restive, to marvel further at Anastasia's charity. He stirred in her direction and had to be tapped smartly twice or thrice with my stick, which discipline I was not at all sure wouldn't turn him upon me. Indeed, he caught the stick in his hand and bit into the shaft of it — a testimonial to the power of his jaws, for the wood was hard — and despite Anastasia's assuring me that he often chewed on boughs and twigs for amusement, and could even nibble quite clever decorations into canes and chair-rungs with no other chisels than his teeth, I was by no means certain I'd be able to restrain him, especially without my weapon, if he took it into mind to assault her once again. As it happened, we all were diverted just then by snarlings in the nearby forest, which grew to a roar and burst upon the beach with half a dozen bright lights, flashing red or blinding white. For all my resolve I was taken with alarm, very nearly with panic; G. W. Gruff himself might have trembled at so instant and terrific a besetting — unheard-of, unprepared-for, monstrously wobbling uswards now with its sprawl of eyes, mad hoots, and growling throats. Max too was startled, and clambered to his feet; Croaker let go my stick and crouched under me with a grunt — whether of defiance or fright I could not judge. Only Anastasia seemed not especially anxious; she frowned at the snarling lights more in disapproval than in fear, and remained in her place by the fire.

"He always has to do things dramatically," she complained.

"Those are motorcycles," Max muttered to me. "Ten or twelve separate ones. The noise is their motors and horns."