The strange thing was that I had authentically striven to gain the same pleasure that he was experiencing-and that I had signally failed. That night I was not fucked out. I was never fucked in. As the night had worn on, my numbness had persisted in the face of George Maytemper's shish-kebab, a near-Eastern dish of considerable pungency whose shape and form, en brochette, most nearly approximated his cock. It mattered not in the least how often I skewered myself with Maytemper's brochette-I was as if frozen. And the more I worried over this sexual state of nonbeing, the colder my responses became-if that were possible. It took no profound glimpse into my psyche for me to understand that I must be punishing myself by feeling guilty for having caused my only love's death-Hugh Kinsteare's. Although I had quite sensibly realized that I was not to be held culpable, there was something within me that singled me out for blame- almost as if I had to suffer for having dared fall in love.
What was really transpiring within my depths was quite simple-I was being frigid because I was in mourning and, when my grief would cease, then and only then would my sexual excitement revive. But I understood that only years later. Who could have foretold that a great Dane would end my grief? In the meantime I was frightened by my lack of sexual response and I took every opportunity to attempt to dissipate it. I not only went periodically to bed with the producer of Maytemper's Mummers-George Maytemper himself-but also with the leading man, Henry Quibbling, and the leading lady, Sylvia Knox-Drendendorff.
As a matter of fact, while we were touring Sussex-and I was acquitting myself admirably on the boards, receiving excellent notices in the local sheets-the juvenile lead, Stanley Widdemer, fell head-over-cock in love with me. It was in Brighton-I shall never forget, for reasons which shall shortly become clear-where Stanley, taking advantage of our surprisingly long run there, declared his undying passion for me.
We were both in our bathing clothes and strolling hand-in-hand along the shallows late that hot July morning, desultorily collecting seashells and within moments contemptuously tossing them back to whatever denizens of the deeps were there to catch them. I managed to blush prettily at Stanley's declaration and, observing the massive crowding in the crotch of his bathing clothes, I bethought myself that perhaps Stanley Widdemer might be in possession of the magic wand or, better, that Excalibur which, plunged into the core of my femaleness, might unseat the icy demon there. Accordingly I made the appropriately senseless sounds and led Stanley to an equally appropriate locus in the hollow of a dune, out of sight of the sea and of the stately, white-faced Georgian residences looking out upon the eternal waters, their windows winking in the midday sun. Stanley Widdemer was a tall lad, thin to the point of emaciation, who had that kind of open-faced, naive countenance that the many middle-aged ladies in our Maytemper's Mummers afternoon audience fell cooingly in love with. I rather felt, myself, that I was about to corrupt a minor, even though the lad was some half-dozen years older than I. Corrupt if you can, I told myself-this may be the key, literally, to unlock Victoria Collins's box. The hell with Pandora's. My own was much more apropos-where one might encounter the shrunken heads of phalli suitably mounted, a much more fascinating exhibit than any big-game hunter's trophy room, on the backgrounds of the natives' brush. Let us hope, thought I, that Stanley Widdemer's phallus will be worth the capture. As the saying goes, I minced no actions. As soon as we had embraced and kissed, Stanley having no trouble in persuading me to endure the sand, I felt for what might be called-if mild exaggeration may be permitted-the cloverleaf creature of Stanley's manhood. I swiftly unbuttoned the fly of Stanley's bathing shorts and inserted a cool hand that instantly came in contact with some highly heated ragout-I do not minimize the amount of thick sauce that Stanley in his fervent eagerness had already spilled. But he quickly reconstituted himself and in a moment he had me on my back on the sand under the mercilessly bright sun. During the whole process I cannot remember anything more vivid than my desire that a bumbershoot spread its benevolent and cooling shadow over the proceedings. An umbrella would at least have kept the sun out of my eyes. Of course, I did try to align myself with the shadow Stanley made, but that was essentially futile since I had obviously no maneuverability beyond the pit of my own making in the sand-a pit which, under the stress of Stanley, I was making deeper and not wider. Oh, for a bumbershoot, I cried within my concupiscent self-if I must counterfeit passion, let it be in a shadier world. And I was, believe me, patient reader, counterfeiting passion. I snorted, I purred. I made choking sounds, whistling sounds, nasal sounds. I screeched, I gargled, I hummed. I yipped, I ya-hooed, I yammered-forgive me my use of the occasional Americanism, but our ex-subjects across the sea do have a decided bent on occasion for the vivid verb and, altogether, for the mot juste. As I was saying, as far as sound was concerned, I gave my sexual all. I was a double concerto, for God's sake. I was seventy-seven horses' arses, simultaneously farting a broadside. I was a gymnast of unparalleled parallel bars-and, mind you, all the time enduring the grinding, knife-gnashing particles of sand penetrating my navel, my yoni and my anus, not to mention the sweaty grains of sand that Stanley brought to my mouth with his, and not to mention the dune streaking my black tresses. Yes-the juvenile lead pounded at me mercilessly. His phallus, in more responsive instances, would have been well worth the capture. As it was… As it was. Yes. Well, here it is. In one of the lulls Stanley Widdemer said, “Victoria?”
“That's my name,” I said brightly. “Victoria,” he said again, as if to roll the syllables around in his spit.
“Precisely,” I said. “Victoria-” I thought for a moment I was taking leave of my senses, but it was Stanley Widdemer in the flesh and leaning on mine. It was terribly hot there behind the sand ridge and in the pit of the dune. Even salt water splashed on my loony brow would have been a boon. Anyhow, what I said was, “Yes, Stanley?” “I love you, Victoria.” He was being candid, I knew, but candor does not necessarily go jerk-in-hand with truth.
Besides, the juvenile lead might be giving me a problem-I wanted no second affair. One was sufficient, George Maytemper was quite enough on that score. But I saw no out other-than to be brutal, and I decided to try that. “Yes,” I said. “Didn't you convey that to me before we dwelt in the sand?” “Yes,” he said mutedly. I wasn't finished. Love, I thought, love. Love was what I needed-to inspire a coronary thrombosis and a dead prick in a live cunt. Exactly what I needed. “About love,” I said, taking up needle and thread.
“Yes, my darling?” Oh Christ in a hammock, I thought. Oh desperate Ben Jon-son displaying the spoils of his vocabulary. Did you hear that jockless “my darling”? “Stanley,” said I, “about love-do you love your mother?” He paled beneath his freckles. “I don't quite make you out, Victoria. Naturally, I love my mother, but what has that to do with-” “Oh,” I interrupted, “I'm sorry, Stanley-I didn't know your mother had died.” He paled a second time, and hardly anything but freckles could be seen. We were obviously down to bone. His adam's apple jiggled a few times before he could attach sound to words. “She's alive,” he said, horrified.
And he really was. He collapsed in my yoni faster than bubbles from goldfish ghosts in a metaphysical pond. He slipped out and, with his back against the rise in the dune, said-gaining strength by the moment- “Is there any bar to my loving her living rather than dead?”
He peered down at me quizzically. “I must say, Victoria, you are rather a strange one, but in spite of that I do love you, you know.”
He stared at my brilliant, nacreous nakedness in the sun and, as his eye tarried at the dense black curls of my delta, the cylindrical lizzard between his thighs-cowed only a little while before-began now to twitch. It was always to me a fascinating progression.