" Now I' m only a moan."
He looked at her slim arms and softly- powdered pale skin. It seemed a shame to give her up just because she was nuts.
" Where do you come from?" he finally asked.
" I told you. Across the street," she answered, purposefully avoiding the obvious information.
" I mean, where were you born?" he persisted.
" Under a stairway," she told him. " In blood and pain. It was quite a shock. I almost died. In fact, that' s when I died."
" Look, sister," he submitted wearily. " I only have an hour before I catch a train. If you want to do business, okay. If not, I' d rather finish this drink alone." His chin trembled at his offer to relinquish her.
Gloria sat very still. She drained her glass and looked at the fly of his pants. Nothing. She had scared the hard- on from between his thighs. Her head ached from the four martinis, and she knew that she' d have a hard time getting up the stairs alone. Alone. Alone. To lie in her bed and listen for footsteps.
" I want to do business," she said meekly.
The man didn' t say another word. He pulled some crumpled bills from his pocket and paid Mike. Then he placed his hand under her elbow and helped her off the stool.
" I live right across the street." The room was turning with carnival abandon.
" What number?"
" Forty- two."
He pushed the swinging doors open for her and they were out on the dark, quiet street. They walked silently to her house.
" The fourth floor."
They mounted the steps wordlessly. He' s not so bad when he shuts his mouth, she thought.
At her door, she reached into her handbag and found her key. She gave it to him as she would to a fraternity date. He looked surprised, but he put the key in the lock and let them both into the apartment. The rooms were forbiddingly silent and he nervously cleared his throat. She turned on the lamp in the living room. A distorted light fell on a blue and gray canvas.
He stood and looked at the picture. " Quite a piece of art." He rocked on his heels.
" Shut up," she said.
He looked shocked. " What? What did you say?"
" Shut up. Shut up. Shut your mouth. Nothing but stupidities come out of your mouth. You have no right to be that stupid. No one has the right to be that stupid." She knew she was drunk. " I bet that you never call anyone stupid. You call them ignoramuses. I bet you have six real long words that you use for speeches and strangers."
" You know a lot," he said. Then he pulled his hand back and slapped her across the mouth. She tasted blood and surprise, and finally excitement.
" Do you beat your whores, stupid? Do you beat your whores and then go home and your wife beats you?" She laughed gaily.
This time he made an enraged fist and punched her in the face. The blow was down on her jaw and she thought he must have broken something.
" You should enjoy what I' m telling you," she pursued. " You' d have to pay an analyst a bucket of money to get this truthful observation. You have a fat stomach and a fat head and a fat brain. No brain. You are, in fact, an ignoramus. There! I' m using your word. Get the hell out of here."
He made a mirthless grunt and pulled her arms behind her back. She felt the muscles ache with strain. He pressed his thumbs and then his hands tightly around her breasts. She thought she would faint with the pain.
" Take your hands off me, you buffoon. You ignoramus… You disgusting, meaningless paunch."
His hands tightened around her breasts and his knee pressed against her kidneys. She slid to the floor in agony. The man was insane with rage. He pulled his belt out of his pants and struck her hard across the stomach. She screamed with pain and then saw his bloated furious face. It was too contemptible to let that fool hear her screams for mercy.
" Stop!" she called to him. " Stop and come down here and love me. Fuck me! Fuck me! Don' t waste your strength beating me. I love your fat, sloppy belly. Press it on me." She opened her legs.
But the man had his belt lifted for another slash, and it landed forcefully on her chest. He seemed not to hear her, not to hear anything. The Neanderthal, the preliterate man, was insulted.
He got down on his knees beside her and roughly tore off her blouse. She thought that at last he was going to take her, then leave her with the few welts. He pulled her skirt off and she lay beside him covered only with a thin nylon bra and transparent panties. He ripped them off her body with his huge, hairless hands. The hands alone made him disgusting.
She moved her head and was sick on the rug. There was an immediate stench of putrefied gin and she was sick again. He leaned his head close to hers and she heard him say, " Bitch! Filthy, fucking bitch."
He stood up and looked long at her naked body where it lay limp next to the mess she' d made. He raised his leather belt and cut her thigh with a heavy stroke. He kicked her over with the pointed toe of his shoe and she felt her stomach slide against the puddle she had made.
She was suddenly sober now, sober and bruised and wanting to die. She felt the belt lacerate her back and she could not stop the trembling of her body. The belt whistled and fell again with his brute primitive strength. It slashed crazily into her white buttocks, and then up again to her neat waist. Sometimes it curled around to nip at the puffy pink flesh between her thighs. He hit her without direction, up and down her body, sometimes missing completely and pounding the rug beside her. She knew, from occasional returning echoes, that she was screaming for help and release. His arm waved frantically above her, and the leather made a swooshing sound before it planted itself against her skin.
There was a pause in the incessant beating, and then she heard the dimly familiar buzz of a sliding zipper. She waited to feel her body turned over, but he apparently enjoyed the network of red slashed on her bottom and back.
She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned her cheek against the soft upper arm, like a child asleep. The pain separated her from her body. She was nothing but a creature lying achingly in filth on the floor – a creature from a nightmare. Her face against her arm was wet with tears. How strange that she had cried. Her body had its habits of response, and a blow produced tears. But all the whipping had accomplished was to stop the buzzing in her cunt, and now he would take her when she had passed the threshold of feeling.
His hands grasped her belly and thigh. He was trying to lift her buttocks to a comfortable height. Business before pleasure. His thumbs pressed her scarred behind, and she jumped with pain.
She could still know more agony; she thought he had finished her.
His fingers crawled between her legs to her soft, dry pubic hairs. He kneaded the mound of sensitive flesh and she writhed in response. She tried to find her voice to insult him, preferring his enraged blows to his groping tenderness. But her voice belonged to her body, and neither belonged to her. His finger pierced the futile tension of her inner flesh. She could feel his knuckle scraping against her, measuring the capacity of her vagina. He grunted his excitement. Pig. Fat, knuckle- mad, cunt- mad pig. The words did not escape from her, and she thought with ecstasy, I' m afraid. Afraid of Mr. Pig, and her body crouched closer to the floor.
He lifted her higher with an angry and impatient gesture, and said, " Stay the way I put you, sister, if you want to live."
But she didn' t want to live, and she sank her body to the floor.
He slapped her hard across her inflamed buttocks and lifted her body in a high arch. This time it stayed that way for him, suspended like a Gothic doorway. Her body trembled in its taut position, and he kneeled behind her, relishing her discomfort. Finally, his passion exceeded his brief sadism and she felt him ram his stiff cock into her. He moved in and out against her motionless buttocks, gasping into the silent room.