John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

"No, really! I thought that might be your own equipment on your belt there."

Without bothering to recount its history I declared the amulet-of-Freddie to be older than myself, and asserted further that so far from being castrate I knew my studly endowment to be greater than any buck's in the herd, and than Max's and the Beist-in-the-buckwheat's too. Though not of the magnitude of either Croaker's or the late G. Herrold's. Rest his mind. Which observations led me —

"I'll just try another sip, if you don't mind…"

"Do!" Stoker urged.

"Thank you."

Which observations, I went on to declare, led me to suppose myself at least as well hung as my most generous host and chauffeur, he being white-skinned under his soot. If not better, in view of his short stature. No offense intended.

"Show us!" Stoker cried. "Get the flashlight, Stacey!"

"George, don't !" Anastasia's angry plea came just in time, for I was nowise loath to test my supposition. "He's only teasing you. He wants to make a fool of you."

"Why? Because his is better? How do you know, till you've compared us?"

She tried over Stoker's laughter to explain that I misunderstood the question, which was one rather of modesty than of fact.

"Ah," I said appreciatively. "You mean I shouldn't boast. Excuse me, I haven't learned all your manners yet. But that makes sense. Excuse me, Mr. Stoker: didn't mean to offend you."

"No offense! No offense! Oh, what a party we'll have tonight!"

Anastasia shook her head and tried again, "It's not an offense to him, one way or the other! I mean, knowing Maurice, I guess he might be disappointed or something if his was smaller — but that's not what I mean either!"

Stoker guffawed.

"It's just not proper, in the presence of a lady!" she cried. Then she added quickly, "I don't mean you meant anything naughty by it…" The labor of articulating made her frown. "I realize you were brought up differently, just as Croaker was…"

I protested (the liquor burning well from my throat to my belly) that I was not so ignorant of West-Campus manners as all that: had I not that same evening rebuked her for displaying across the Georgian River her own escutcheon? But plainly there was a crucial difference between the cases: my reproach had not been for the display of beauty as such — to which none could reasonably object without advocating that her face be covered as well, and her fine-modeled arms and dainty pasterns, not to mention all the countless other of nature's charms, from rainbows to thistle-blossoms. Nay, it was the motive I protested, not the deed: her intent, as I'd mistaken it, to compromise the Grand-Tutorial chastity enjoined on me by Max…

"I knew it!" Stoker said triumphantly.

"But I had no such thing in my mind just now," I said. "Naturally I'd be complimented if you thought all my parts were handsome, too — poor G. Herrold used to like them, rest his mind, and I'm pleased enough with them, I guess. But beauty's not the point here: the question was a simple one of size. I can't see where propriety comes in."

"Don't you understand, woman?" Stoker chided her. "That's just how her mind works, though, George: she thinks you want to put it in her."

"I do not !" Anastasia cried, at the same moment that I declared, "I do !" Not a little impatient at her consternation, I said, "Didn't I make that clear? I'd like nothing better than to mate with you if I weren't the Grand Tutor. Which I am! I don't even know for sure if Max is right about this chastity business; I'll have to decide for myself. If I decide he's right, nobody can tempt me; if I decide he's wrong, nobody can stop me."

"Hear! Hear!" Stoker said.

I smiled gravely upon the excellent girl. "Especially I think it would be good to bite you in the belly, Anastasia — not really to hurt, you understand. Your belly is very attractive. Very."

In a small and uncertain voice she said, "Thank you."

"Provided you wanted me to," I added, as a particular admonition to Stoker and by way of demonstrating what I took to be Grand-Tutorial judiciousness. "That's something none of you seems to consider: to mate or whatever with a doe that's not in heat — a girl I mean of course — is not right at all. No buck would ever do such a thing. You couldn't make him."

Stoker shook his head. "Stacey could make him. Everybody mates with her: chancellors, uncles, laundrymaids, billy-goats — everybody! And yet she's never been in heat in her whole life."

"Isn't that odd! Why do you suppose that is?" It was she I asked, but seeing she'd hidden her face at the disclosure, I tactfully changed the subject. "Do you remember what your goat-friend's name was, that you mated with? I'm sure I'd know him if he was one of our studs."

I was astounded to see her wail into tears; nor would she permit me to calm her with my hand, but pushed it from her withers as if I had offended her, and whipped her head from side to side.

"Now stop!" I told her. "I don't see why you're crying!" I rather wished Max were there to advise me, despite the pleasures of independence I'd been feeling; for though I found Maurice Stoker more interesting and challenging than repugnant, I had no illusions about his straightforwardness. Now he said, "What's to see? You admit you used to bugger old Sambo back there, and then you tell my wife she's not worth biting in the belly! Don't you think the girl's got feelings?"

"That's all wrong! Don't you believe him, Anastasia: he's a regular Dean o' Flunks, and I'm the Grand Tutor! I'd love to bite your belly. I really would!"

"Even Max could hardly object to that," Stoker remarked.

"So what if he did? Anything I do, that's what a Grand Tutor should do. If I bite your wife in the belly, it's right to bite her in the belly!" Not to have Anastasia think my words mere idle rhetoric or dutiful apology, I went at her forthwith, sliding to my knees and boring my face past her hands into her midriff. Despite the sidecar's jolting and for all her wrench and wriggle (which I took for a kind of pouting with the whole body), I contrived to fasten through the cloth of her shift upon a pinch of that admirable, most soft place, which I clenched gently but unremittingly in my teeth until her writhing ceased and her hands no longer thrust but only clutched my hair. I felt us wheel round a bend, but was that determined she must affirm the Tightness of whatever I did — a Tightness, it occurred to me as I bit, by definition — I'd not have let go even when we jerked now to a halt, had not the roar of other motors suddenly enveloped us. Relinquishing my tender gobbet I raised my head and blinked in a flood of light: we were drawn up on a graveled apron before a huge iron door, let into a steep dark hillside and guarded by a pistoled host, sooty as their master. They grinned, as did the riders thronging in from various roads to skid up near us, at the wide amazement on the face that rose from Anastasia's lap. But the only laugh was Stoker's, which, when the engines quit, the massive door gave back, iron and ringing as itself.

"So we're home!" Stoker cried. "Have to finish your meal later, old chap!" To the door-guards he shouted, "Open her up!" and to his aide on the nearest cycle (in which Max rode, but would not return my greeting), "Tell Sear we've got one dead Frumentian and one doped one he should have a look at. And a goat-boy, too, if he's interested."

The sharp-faced lieutenant nodded. At his command (not in our tongue) two guards with fierce-appearing dogs on leash opened a small metal box near the door and did something with their hands inside it. Engines were restarted; Stoker winked at me, handed me his flask once more, and started ours. With a grind the heavy door began to slide: smoky orange light streamed from the widening crack. I had time to notice through my bedazzlement, as I sipped, only that other such doors were visible in patches of yellow glare at various heights on the rock-face, and that a double row of bluish floodlights on tall poles, with a thick white pipe between, stretched out over flat ground to leftwards — a brilliant line straight to the horizon. Then we crunched forward on the gravel towards the door, the aide's vehicle in the lead. The guards gave way before his and Stoker's oaths; the dogs lunged at Max, were checked with effort, and snarled at me too as we went past them.