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Authors: Norman Mailer
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said.
“Lot of good that does,” she whipped at me. “You guys give me a pain in the ass.” She turned away to light a cigarette and laughed. “Here,” she said unexpectedly, “here, you want to feel my breasts, here, feel them,” and she took my hand and placed it. I kissed her again, and indolently she raised the arm which supported the cigarette and returned the embrace.
She was not without response. The kiss must have lasted for over a minute, and my hands moved in a crescendo about her. When we paused, her breath was coming quickly too.
“Hey,” she said.
“Come on.” Nothing was going to stop me now. “Come on.”
“We cant.”
“Right here.”
She stiffened. “Look,” she whispered, “the kid’s around. Are you crazy?”
I would not be thwarted. “Upstairs in my room.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve got to come upstairs.”
She pinched me suddenly. “All right, I will.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll be up.” She groaned. “Oh, my God, what you guys get me into.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, I’ll be up in ten minutes. Now, get out of here, and let me get Monina to bed.”
Battered, drunk with lust, I stumbled to my room.
SEVEN
G UINEVERE did not follow.
I was furious. In the next miserable hour I lay on my cot under the baking heat of the roof and stared at the wall. The hot summer afternoon dragged by, carrying me with it in torpor. I tried to read, I thought of working, but neither was practicable. At last I took a walk.
I was gone for hours and ended at the docks where I sat on a deserted quay, flipping pebbles into the oily water which swirled about the piles. Twilight came, and across the harbor, skyscrapers reflected the sun. I ate my solitary meal in a lunchroom and returned to my desk in an attempt to write.
It was hardly productive. After several hours in which I was able to do very little, I went out again to pace through the dark streets. I was in the kind of mood where I made resolution after resolution. I was not doing enough work, I decided; then tomorrow I would begin a new schedule. I would get up early and work till evening, and I would do the same in the following days. I would leave Guinevere alone. Certainly I would not go to see her without some invitation.
Yet perversity is not without resource. I could detect in myself beneath twenty mattresses of frustration the small hard pea bean of relief that Guinevere had not kept her word. For animage came to me of the two of us in my room. The door is locked, and I lie with my head at her breast while summer air shimmers over us. We are happy, we are content, and we are safe. Suddenly there is a knock. We start up, look desperately at one another, search for an escape. There is none. The door is the only door to the room, and the window is a hundred feet above the ground. We make no sound and draw the bedclothes to our necks. The knocking ceases, and there is silence. Then a key is inserted in the lock, turns back and forth. We wait, petrified, and the door opens, and on the threshold stands a stranger. His arm lifts in a menacing gesture, and I close my eyes and turn my head to the pillow.
This was a conscious fantasy, but even so, walking the street on a June night, I shuddered and there was a sweat on my back. Several minutes passed before I felt calm enough to light a cigarette, and I dallied beneath a lamp-post.
When I came back to the room, I picked up my novel, and on an impulse reread everything I had written. I intended a large ambitious work about an immense institution never defined more exactly than that, and about the people who wandered through it. The book had a hero and a heroine, but they never met while they were in the institution. It was only when they escaped, each of them in separate ways and by separate methods, that they were capable of love and so could discover each other.
I had never stated it so baldly before, and as I put the novel down, the story seemed absurd and I was
“Lot of good that does,” she whipped at me. “You guys give me a pain in the ass.” She turned away to light a cigarette and laughed. “Here,” she said unexpectedly, “here, you want to feel my breasts, here, feel them,” and she took my hand and placed it. I kissed her again, and indolently she raised the arm which supported the cigarette and returned the embrace.
She was not without response. The kiss must have lasted for over a minute, and my hands moved in a crescendo about her. When we paused, her breath was coming quickly too.
“Hey,” she said.
“Come on.” Nothing was going to stop me now. “Come on.”
“We cant.”
“Right here.”
She stiffened. “Look,” she whispered, “the kid’s around. Are you crazy?”
I would not be thwarted. “Upstairs in my room.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve got to come upstairs.”
She pinched me suddenly. “All right, I will.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll be up.” She groaned. “Oh, my God, what you guys get me into.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, I’ll be up in ten minutes. Now, get out of here, and let me get Monina to bed.”
Battered, drunk with lust, I stumbled to my room.
SEVEN
G UINEVERE did not follow.
I was furious. In the next miserable hour I lay on my cot under the baking heat of the roof and stared at the wall. The hot summer afternoon dragged by, carrying me with it in torpor. I tried to read, I thought of working, but neither was practicable. At last I took a walk.
I was gone for hours and ended at the docks where I sat on a deserted quay, flipping pebbles into the oily water which swirled about the piles. Twilight came, and across the harbor, skyscrapers reflected the sun. I ate my solitary meal in a lunchroom and returned to my desk in an attempt to write.
It was hardly productive. After several hours in which I was able to do very little, I went out again to pace through the dark streets. I was in the kind of mood where I made resolution after resolution. I was not doing enough work, I decided; then tomorrow I would begin a new schedule. I would get up early and work till evening, and I would do the same in the following days. I would leave Guinevere alone. Certainly I would not go to see her without some invitation.
Yet perversity is not without resource. I could detect in myself beneath twenty mattresses of frustration the small hard pea bean of relief that Guinevere had not kept her word. For animage came to me of the two of us in my room. The door is locked, and I lie with my head at her breast while summer air shimmers over us. We are happy, we are content, and we are safe. Suddenly there is a knock. We start up, look desperately at one another, search for an escape. There is none. The door is the only door to the room, and the window is a hundred feet above the ground. We make no sound and draw the bedclothes to our necks. The knocking ceases, and there is silence. Then a key is inserted in the lock, turns back and forth. We wait, petrified, and the door opens, and on the threshold stands a stranger. His arm lifts in a menacing gesture, and I close my eyes and turn my head to the pillow.
This was a conscious fantasy, but even so, walking the street on a June night, I shuddered and there was a sweat on my back. Several minutes passed before I felt calm enough to light a cigarette, and I dallied beneath a lamp-post.
When I came back to the room, I picked up my novel, and on an impulse reread everything I had written. I intended a large ambitious work about an immense institution never defined more exactly than that, and about the people who wandered through it. The book had a hero and a heroine, but they never met while they were in the institution. It was only when they escaped, each of them in separate ways and by separate methods, that they were capable of love and so could discover each other.
I had never stated it so baldly before, and as I put the novel down, the story seemed absurd and I was
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