William Vollmann - The Royal Family

You lookin’ for pussy, mister?

Oh, please, said Loreena, amused in spite of herself.

The tall man leaned back in his stool with a lordly air and said: Me, I’d rather jerk off than scratch the open sore between some bitch’s legs. If I can’t bring her somewhere, go out with her, show her off, it’s not worth it. Say, why don’t you take me out to lunch?

I’ve got some private business with a friend, said John as curtly as he could.

That’ll be four-fifty, sweetie, said Loreena. John gave her a five.

What kind of business? said the tall man.

Private business.

Say, white boy—

Hey! shrilled Loreena. You say one word to my customers and you’re out of here! They’re good people.

Right on! Right on, right on! an old drunk shouted.

Say, I’d sure like to know what your private business is. You gonna deliver him a couple of keys?*

Something like that. Now shut up or I’ll throw this drink in your face.

The tall man rose, opened his mouth wide, and uttered a cawing, sneering laugh which showed his epiglottis and all his teeth. Then he advanced on John, who leaped to his feet.

Gentlemen, gentlemen! cried Loreena, rushing between them with the baseball bat upraised. The tall man stalked back to his seat.

You know what? said John. This man is threatening me. Either you get him out of here or I’m going out. This is no way to run a business.

Loreena picked up the phone. — This time I mean it, Justin. Get out.

Cursing, the tall man swilled his drink. He spat one ice cube on the floor and went out crunching another between his teeth.

The sights you see when you don’t have a gun! laughed Loreena. John refused to look at her.

He sat there waiting for Domino for ten more minutes. Then he left also.

Back again, said Loreena.

Yeah, said John, clearing his throat.

She just went out on a date. She’ll be back in fifteen minutes, I’d say, or an hour at the absolute latest.

Fine.

I hope you mean to take good care of her. She’s a keeper.

John said nothing.

Oh, we love her, Loreena went on. We take care of her. We leave her alone. She’s still beautiful.

Hey, Domino loves me! shouted the drunk two barstools away.

What the fuck, another man sneered. Domino kicks your ass.

Another round, Bentley? Loreena asked the sneerer. That whitehaired gentleman nodded and leaned back with a happy smile on his face because now that Louis Armstrong was singing on the jukebox and Loreena would serve him, he was momentarily King.

A black woman whom John did not know was Bernadette vomited on the floor. — Sorry, Loreena, she said. ’Cause I drank that Tom Collins on top of my pills I’m almost ready to pass out…

John drank two beers. Then through the swinging double doors came Domino.

Domino raised the candle (dark crimson because dark wax burns hotter) and told the john to be quiet. Looking him up and down, she smiled, then abruptly tilted the candle so that a molten ball of wax fell glowingly out. The john screamed.

Oh, do shut up, said Domino. It’s not that bad.

The man shut up.

Roll over on your stomach, said Domino. Head to the right. Close your eyes.

The box opened. Then she lovingly stroked the john’s back and bottom. She placed her palm on his buttock, then patted it, then spanked it. Then suddenly he felt a stinging blow. — What was it? A hairbrush, a paddle, a cord? — Another thud — harder, then harder. Another. One on his back which made him grunt. He knew that Domino was happy then, although he couldn’t see her (he wasn’t allowed to).

She said: How are you feeling?

Okay.

Do you want more?

Up to you.

Ask me for more.

Please give me more.

Thud, thud, slap in the flesh.

Do you want more?

Up to you, John repeated. The more tightly he closed his eyes, the more vividly he saw Celia’s face.

Ask me for more.

Please give me more, he groaned out.

Thud, thud, slap in the flesh. The pain pooled all over him like the merging streams of hot wax on his belly, like a trail of crimson blood. The john looked into her happy exalted face as the wax came down, and he looked again later when she peeled the congealed wax off his pubic hair. After a while he began to feel the sting all over. Timidly, he squeezed her naked thigh to share the pain with her. She told him to leave her alone.

When they were finished, he tipped her. Domino grinned and slapped him on the back. — You’re a real sport, honey, she said.

Where are you staying?

Oh, with this old black man, Domino lied heartily. Every night he gets drunk and violent. Every day he has prostitutes coming over, which offends me. He’s no damn good.

You want me to break his legs? said John, thrilled with his own boldness.

Oh, he’s not that bad. Okay, I gotta go. Anytime you need me, just whistle four times. What did John want, but success? His vocation, although to most of us it seems as stale and tortuous as some medieval allegory, offered slow, strenuous accomplishments. Other souls preferred what gets disparagingly called “instant gratification”—that is, happiness sufficiently present to count on, like the joy crouching inside a perfect crystal of crack cocaine lying in the palm of a whore’s hand, ready to be combusted into pleasure all for her. It is related of Saint Ignatius that when his Jesuits spoke of tomorrow or next year, he’d cry in astonishment: What? You can be certain that God will allow you to live so long? — This too is the crack whore’s philosophy, and the strategem of the vultures who sent Tyler the form letter which advised: The CASH you NEED is in your CAR. Tap into your autmobile equity TODAY. BORROW and REPAY! Introductory rate: 6.25 %. Tyler wanted cash; of course he did. And Irene — ah, what did Irene want? Maybe I’ll start swimming, Mom, she’d said to Mrs. Tyler, who shook her head as she replied: Irene, honey, you shouldn’t take up swimming unless you have the kind of hair that you can do up yourself. — But Irene wanted freedom. She wanted not to be told what to do. — As for Dan Smooth, he envisoned Paradise as a hot Italian beach with long jetties and a breakwater, a hotel room with metal blinds halfway up a hill of olive trees, vineyard-terraces twisting on and on. Smooth needed this for his stage set, but center stage was the place where cobalt blue ocean expressed itself in a frothy white line, then became an olive-brown kingdom of wet sand. There the young children squatted and built their sandcastles. Hexagonal beach umbellas, striped like candy, cooled candied, taffyed flesh which lived and quivered on the sand. Here his eye could freely hunt among the dimpled thighs of old age; youth had a certain color — how could he describe it? He’d never stop revering it. Pubescent breasts and prepubescent breasts and the slender ribcages of children, these comprised his spiritual food. A little pinkish-brown girl, too young for breast-buds, too young not to be naked-chested, licked an ice cream cone. Now she was playing with the bottom of her bathing trunks. Smooth, nostrils flaring, withstood the craving to lean forward in his beach chair. He waited. Suddenly the child pulled her bathing trunks midway down her thighs — right there amidst the beach-umbrellaed crowd! — displaying her creamy bikini zone, and as she turned toward him, evidently perceiving his gaze, he glimpsed her long narrow mound, as white as new photographic paper, and the slit-lips in the middle, so soft and white like slices of mushrooms in a perfect salad. Meanwhile a matchstick-legged boy fiddled with the back pockets of his swimsuit.