William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Ouch, said Irene, wide-eyed. You’re hurting me.

John believed that he had actually been very gentle, but he removed his hand and placed it on her breast instead.

My nipples are sore, Irene told him. Can’t you see how big and swollen my breasts are? This pregnancy really hurts me. I feel awful all the time. I don’t like to be touched.

All right, said John, slipping an arm around her so that they could simply go back to sleep.

You’re hurting my neck, Irene said. Please take your arm away.

He lay on his back all night, desiring his wife and wondering why that was so — probably because he couldn’t have her, he decided. At dawn, not long before the alarm was due to go off, he found himself touching Irene again. She opened her eyes wearily when he pulled her legs apart.

You’re so selfish, she said. You only think of yourself.

John, attempting to suppress his pain and rage, rolled onto his wife, pulling her thighs wider apart and entering her. The lips of her womb were wet and loose, not the other way which they so often had been, and he had almost convinced himself that she might actually be feeling pleasure when she grimacingly closed her eyes, but after his second or third thrust she said: Would you please hurry up? I really hate this.

John lost his erection. Staring into his wife’s face, he knew that he could do nothing. It seemed to him that he had been forlornly wandering across the desert of her loathing for an immeasurably long time. After the shock of the repulsion, and then the sadness and anger of being rejected, he began to feel himself to be falling or departing, in much the same way as when, walking east on California Street your feeling is mainly one of awayness until, reaching Gough Street, you find yourself looking down into a deep bowl of building-rows whose far side begins the pale, windowed towers of the financial district, on the horizon of which a flag bares itself to the ruminant clouds. And so John rolled silently off Irene, so bitterly sad that his knees were weak. He could barely walk away. He didn’t hate her, nor was he angry anymore; but now that he knew that she would never want to be alone with him, that she had nothing to say to him when she had so much to say to someone else, the remainder of his life became a long dark trap filled with stale darkness, like some ghoul’s tunnel from one coffin to another. He was not the ghoul, but the thing in the grave for the ghoul to eat. She was not the ghoul, either. She was no monster. It was only their marriage that was monstrous.

I suppose I should get up and take a shower, he thought.

Well, go ahead, Irene said coarsely. What’s wrong now? If you want to fuck me, then fuck me.

Oh, forget it, said John. By the way, I may be back late tonight.

You mean after all that you’re just going to leave me like this? Irene said. You mean you don’t want to make love?

Well, you obviously don’t want to, so forget it, John said.

He got up and turned on the shower.

That’s not fair, Irene said. I deserve to use the shower first. I have to wash myself off now that you…

No, said John, shaking with fury. I’m using the shower first.

He entered the shower and closed the frosted window-door behind him.

You’re so selfish, Irene repeated, sitting down naked on the toilet. Then John lowered his head into the stream of hot water, and became blessedly deaf.

Hurry up, Domino was saying. I don’t have all morning. I’m tired. You already used up your fifty dollars’ worth.

Grunting anxiously, the old man rode her up and down, his flaccid penis hardly even touching her.

All right, Domino said. That’s it. I have to go now.

The old man burst into tears.

You’re disgusting, Domino said. You have no consideration. You think I enjoy getting sucked and fucked by every stranger? You men are all the same. Now get off me.

The old man obeyed, blubbering.

You know what? said Domino, pulling up her panties. You’re really manipulative. Crying like that is what a little kid does. You’re a grownup, mister. You had your chance. I did what I was supposed to do. It’s not my fault that you’re too old and worthless to get it up, so don’t come crying to me. That won’t cut any ice.

She took her bra off the chair and hooked it back on.

Or do you enjoy getting humiliated? she asked the old man sternly. Is that what this is all about?

The old man hung his head.

Why, you stupid shit! laughed Domino. That’s what it is! You’re just a pussy slave! Say it! Say, I’m a pussy slave.

I’m a pussy slave, the old man muttered, his head down.

I suppose you want me to piss in your mouth, but you know what? I don’t feel like it, laughed the blonde. You don’t even deserve to be my toilet. Get down on your hands and knees.

Eagerly, the old man obeyed.

All right. Now say it. Say I’m a dog.

I’m…I’m…

Hurry up, asshole. I don’t have all day.

The old man groaned and whispered, then suddenly screamed with an eagle’s triumph as his semen shot out upon the dusty floor.

Domino slapped his shoulder, not unkindly. — Congratulations, sport. Now do I get a tip?

Celia with her toes together leaned enthusiastically over the kitchen counter, saying: Oh, this is divine, Mrs. Singer.

Call me Iris, please, urged her hostess.

Iris, you’re such a good cook, Celia said.

There’s something about adding nutmeg, said Mrs. Singer.

And what a charming china set you have, said Roland’s wife, Amanda, who’d seen the china set many times before.

I don’t know, disagreed Mrs. Rapp. There’s something about adding dishes. After a certain point, you don’t really need any more.

The dishes I use the most are my red, white and blue dishes, Celia said hastily.

I suppose I should put the guacamole in the refrigerator, said Amanda. It’s been sitting out so long. Iris, if you leave the seeds in, will that really keep it from turning brown?

That’s what I’m told.

Iris, you know the most interesting things.

Well, I figure if I can clean the floor, I can organize the food.

I use my dollar-ninety-nine dishes because they’re so light, said Mrs. Rapp, who was well known for her stinginess, which she preferred to consider frugality.

Observing how the corners of Mrs. Singer’s mouth had begun to tremble at this renewed attack, Celia said: Let me cut the cake, Iris.

This dessert is an example to all of us, said Amanda, who had a reputation for venial flattery. It’s just so damn tempting.

Oh, my God, Iris. That looks wonderful, said Mrs. Rapp, suddenly worrying that the other ladies might have considered her rude. You added a touch of chocolate?

Just cocoa. Cocoa powder, you now, not the other kind—

Should we bring the silverware over here? said Celia.

In this household, Irene had once tried to carry everyone’s scraped, licked plates out to the kitchen, but she had forgotten one, which Mrs. Singer, who loved to punish youthfulness, had added to her armload with a brightly malicious smile like sunlight coming in through glass bricks in a Tenderloin bar. Celia experienced no such difficulties. Was she less youthful? Perhaps (she was certainly too jaded already to be impressed by Berkeley’s espresso cafes, whose little round tables were blond wood or black Italian laminate), but the other thing was that Mrs. Singer considered Celia to be exactly suited to John. The episode of Irene of course had been a terrible tragedy. Mrs. Singer would have liked to ask John how he was coping, but did not dare. Gazing into his face at dinner, she’d searched with intense curiosity (like a Tenderloin motorist studying the effect of streetlights upon dark miniskirts) for any traces of grief, but could find nothing exceptional. But then, John was famously unreadable. (Yeah, but it’s not even a question of making a decision when something global happens, he was saying. Then all anyone can do is react. — Mr. Rapp nodded bored and uncomprehending agreement.) As for Irene, beneath her pliancy (she gave with every push, just like the green doors of Jonell’s Bar swinging back and forth) a certain resistance to the whole universe had become all too obvious. Celia, whom Mrs. Singer was sure that John had carefully chosen, seemed more appropriate: Stick a pin into her, and you’d see her bleed. Only the two Tyler brothers had ever seen Irene’s bloody tears. No matter how cruelly Mrs. Singer had slighted the little Korean girl — which she invariably did out of John’s sight — she failed to accomplish any effect except a trembling rigidity which she mistakenly believed to be anger rather than humiliated pain. (You don’t cook John a decent dinner, do you? said Irene’s sister Pammy. — What do you mean? — You always serve him frozen food. If I were John, I’d dump you. — Irene kept quiet. That was Irene, silent, outwardly submissive. She never forgot a grudge.) That was why Mrs. Singer preferred Celia, who was unable to pretend that she had not been hurt. Expressiveness in others enriched Mrs. Singer’s confidence in her own interpretations, possibly because a certain fear that she had not accomplished anything in life left her all the more desirous of discovering easy clues to less consequential questions.