“A woman who delights in her body and what a man does to it,” said Maginn. “A woman who loves the encounter.”
“You mean a loose woman, then?”
“Not quite, but all women are loose at some time or other,” Maginn said.
“I disagree,” Edward said. “The most voluptuous woman I’ve ever met I know in my soul isn’t promiscuous, and is undoubtedly a virgin.”
“They become loose after they cease to be virgins.”
“You are very down on women.”
“Every chance I get,” said Maginn.
“I may marry a woman who doesn’t conform to your view of promiscuous females.” Then, without wishing to, but in defense of his putative bride-to-be, he blurted out her name: “Katrina Taylor.”
“Katrina Taylor! She said yes to you?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting for her answer.”
“You are one extraordinarily lucky son of a bitch if you snare her, my friend. She’s a woman in a million. I met her last February skating on the canal, but I doubt she knows my name.”
“She may not have me,” Edward said.
“Ye gods! Katrina Taylor! Thinking about a woman like that must drive you mad. What do you do when the urge comes on you?”
“Which urge? I have many.”
“The only urge worth yielding to. It’s on me now just talking about women, and I thought I’d yield over at the Pasture.”
“The Pasture?”
“You are benighted, Daugherty. You’ve been here a week and haven’t heard of the other tent city? We must complete your education.”
As dusk enveloped the Fairgrounds and the Fair’s seven gates closed for the night, the young men walked to the Bull’s Head tavern, beyond the fenced pasture where six bulls rested beside a barn. They walked across the tavern’s open meadow, where prizefights were staged, to four small tents standing in a clearing of the bordering woods. This was the Fair-spawned Night Village, where the Ladies of the Pasture sold bucolic love. The brothels downtown in Albany and across the river in Troy were servicing multitudes of visiting Fairgoers in quest of passion’s two-bit nocturne; but the higher-paid Ladies of the Pasture opened for business at high noon and worked well past moonrise, catering to postmeridian libido, and to lust which lacked the time or inclination to quit the Fair’s environs.
The night was brisk and Edward and Maginn both wore fedoras and three-button suits. A man sitting in front of one open tent lit by a kerosene lamp was accepting money from a tall, brawny farm boy. The boy paid, then bent himself into the tent and closed the flap behind him.
“You boys in the market?”
“We’re shopping,” said Maginn.
“Anything in particular?”
“They should be pretty.”
“Hell, they’re all pretty once you’re in that tent. Just go say hello and see what you like. Last three tents. The first one’s busy.”
“We’ll take a look,” Maginn said.
As he and Edward walked to the farthest tent, Edward stopped and asked aloud, “Why am I doing this?”
“What is it you’re doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you’re making a discovery,” Maginn said. “Like Lewis and Clark charting the Northwest Territory, we’re about to enter the heady hemisphere of love.”
“I’m already in love.”
“Love may look virginal, but also whorish. You have to differentiate the forms.”
“This will serve me well?”
“You will earn medals for your service.”
“Who awards the medals?”
“The whores of the world, by which I mean most of the human race.”
“You have a dark view of life, Maginn.”
“Dark, like French pussy,” Maginn said.
At the last tent Maginn raised the flap and they walked in on two young whores who looked about twenty, bundled in coats, sitting on chairs.
“Good evening, ladies, we came to say hello.”
“Is that all you came for?” asked the one with blond bangs and a crossed eye.
“We’d like to see what you’re offering.”
The girls stood and took off their coats, showing matching bodies clad in chemisettes and black stockings.
“My name is Nellie,” said the girl with normal eyes, lowering her shoulder strap. She was dark-haired and chesty. “We came to see the Fair,” she said.
“And have you seen it?”
“Not yet. We found this job, and when we get through at night the Fair is closed.”
“Well, we’re glad you’re not closed,” Maginn said. “You look lovely from the anterior perspective, but may we now have your posterior revelation?”
“What’s that?” the cross-eyed girl asked.
“He means our fannies,” Nellie said. The two turned their backs and bent from the waist.
“Very intriguing,” Maginn said. “We’ll be back.”
“Thank you kindly, girls,” Edward said.
“Don’t mention it,” Nellie said, and she raised the front of her chemisette for Edward. Maginn pulled Edward by the arm outside and toward the next tent.
“She was nice,” Edward said.
“Not bad for starters,” Maginn said, “but we shouldn’t accept the first offer.”
“What if you like the offer?”
“You’re fond of busty women.”
“I liked her style.”
“She lacks all style. What you like is subliterate quim.”
“Whatever you call it, it’s worth some attention.”
“Take a squint here first,” Maginn said, and he opened the tent flap. A woman in her thirties, her long brown hair streaked with gray, smiled at her visitors. She was sitting on her cot, wrapped in a blanket, only her black stockings visible.
“You boys looking to get warm?”
“Maybe even hot,” Maginn said.
“That can happen,” the whore said, and she stood and spread her arms to open the blanket. “Here’s the stove.”
She had penetrating eyes that gave her face a smartness Edward liked. She wasn’t as chesty as Nellie, but ample, and her symmetry raised the issue of sexual aesthetics in Edward’s brain.
“I wish we had a camera,” he said.
“Camera ain’t what you point at this,” the whore said.
“What should we point at it?” Maginn asked.
“You really asking me that question?”
“He’s making a joke,” Edward said.
“I ain’t here for jokes.”
“I apologize for him. How much do you charge?”
“Six bits, same as the others, unless I do more. You know what I mean?”
“I guess I do,” Edward said.
“I guess you don’t, if you gotta guess about it.”
“What’s your name?” Edward asked.
“Rose,” the whore said. “And I got the pink petals to prove it.”
“I think I’ll stay,” Edward said.
“There’s another tent to check out,” Maginn said.
“You check it and give me a report. I’m with Rose.”
“That’s my cute boy,” Rose said.
“All right, since you insist,” Maginn said. “I’ll meet you in the tavern in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes?” said Edward. “What if it’s two hours?”
“You take two hours,” Rose said, “you get your money back.” She unbuttoned Edward’s suit coat.
“Don’t wait for me past Tuesday,” Edward told Maginn.
Edward wondered at his own choice, decided he was behaving instinctually, without accessible logic, but knew his behavior was full of awe and pity and reverence and some bizarre desire yet to be understood. As Rose moved through her early performance Edward adjudged her a woman of imaginative display: skilled in revelation, exalted by self-communion, who yielded herself without haste. “A gift of flint, nest of tinder” is how he would describe such a woman in one of his short stories. She moved Edward slowly into fervency.