“It’s the pot.” Bix blew a mournful note on the trumpet.
“I’m sorry I don’t satisfy you, but there’s no need to get insulting,” Penny replied stiffily—which, after the way she’s exercised her jaw, was the only way she was capable of replying.
“Insulting. What do you mean?”
“You called me a pot.”
“No, chick, you don’t dig. I didn’t mean you. I meant the pot I’ve been smoking. The tea, you know? The weed?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Penny pursed her love-chapped lips and prepared to resume activity.
“Never mind.” Bix pushed her gently away. “I’m just not going to make this scene. We might as well face it.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. Aren’t you frustrated?” Penny asked sympathetically.
“Like a jazzman sucked into a longhair concert. Yeah. I am frustrated. That I am. But there’s nothing we can do about it except—- Wait a minute!” Bix sounded a triumphal note on the trumpet. “There is something we can do. Down at my pad I’ve got an orgone box. That should fix me up. What do you say? Will you come down there with me?”
“I’d like to,” Penny answered honestly. “But I can’t. You see, I’m a prisoner here. They won’t let me out.”
“Huh? You mean this is some kind of white slave operation or something? Come on now, you’re putting me on. That kind of thing went out with Fu Manchu.”
“No, really. It’s the truth.”
“You mean for real? These cats are holding you against your will?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“But they can’t do that. Look, I’ll help you escape if you’ll promise to come down to my pad. Okay?”
“Okay. But how? They keep a pretty close watch on me. And I’m sure this place is guarded.”
Bix thought a minute. “I’ve got it,” he said finally. “We’ll set fire to the place and escape in the confusion.”
“I don’t know—” Penny started to say doubtfully. But it was already too late. Bix was already tossing lit matches at the draperies. Within a few moments fire was crackling all about them. Penny grabbed the mink and followed him out the door of the room.
The fire spread quickly. Soon flames were shooting all through the bordello. Standing at the top of the staircase and watching the holocaust he had wrought, Bix smiled to Penny and blew a hot note on his trumpet. “It’s times like these,” he said, watching the naked and half-naked girls and customers scampering about in panic, “when I wish I played a violin.”
He led Penny through the smoke and flames, down the staircase, through the main lounge, and out the front door. “Taxi!” Bix hailed a passing cab. He gave the driver a Greenwich Village address and a moment later he and Penny were speeding downtown.
“Go-go-go, man,” Bix urged the driver. “We’re in a sweat.”
“What’s the hurry?” Penny wanted to know.
“Dat ole debbil sex, that’s what,” Bix told her. “I can’t wait to start those colored lights spinning.”
“But-—” Penny tried to put it as delicately as possible. “But you seemed to be having some—uh—-difficulty before.”
“My orgone box ’ll take care of that, never fear, chick.”
“You mentioned that before. I hate to sound naive,” said Penny naively, “but just what is an orgone box?”
“A real cool juicer, baby, that’s what. It soaks up all the orgones floating around the air and stores them for when they’re most needed—like right now. All I have to do is slip into it and—-wham!—I’m re-charged.”
“Yes, but-—- Well, I know I’m awfully innocent,” Penny admitted innocently, “but just what is an orgone?”
“Jizzum, honey, jizzum. It’s what makes the pistons go, you know? Like, we wouldn’t any of us be here without there were orgones.”
“I guess I just don’t comprehend,” said Penny uncomprehendingly.
“It’s simple. They’re like invisible ray doohickeys, sort of. This cat Dr. Wilhelm Reich discovered them and glommed onto a way of storing them in a box. So they’re there when you need ’em, dig? Like acorns for the squirrels.”
“What have the squirrels got to do with it?”
“Nothing.” Bix sighed. “Nothing, really.”
“Then why did you mention them?”
“Skip it. Just skip it. Let’s stick to orgones—and hope they stick to me.”
They rode in silence the rest of the way. The cab pulled up in front of a wooden frame building on Perry Street. Bix paid the driver and ushered Penny down a flight of steps to the door to a basement apartment. “Home sweet home.” He blew a riffle on his trumpet as he fumbled the key in the lock. Then he guided Penny inside and switched on a light.
“This is very pleasant,” Penny said, sounding a little surprised.
“It’s not the dump it looks like from the outside, hey? Well, I put a lot of elbow grease into this pad. Look, here’s the bar. Why don’t you mix us a couple of blasts while I slip out of my clothes and into the orgone box?”
“Where is it?” Penny looked around curiously. “I’d like to see what an orgone box looks like.”
“In the john. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Bix led her into the bathroom, swept aside the shower curtain and indicated a large wooden box which filled the bathtub. “There she is,” he said proudly.
“It looks like a coffin,” Penny said bewilderedly. “What’s inside it?”
“I will be in a minute.” Bix was stripping off his clothes.
“That isn’t what I mean. What I mean is, what sort of machinery is it? And how do you plug it in?”
“There’s no machinery involved. And you don’t plug it in.”
“Does it operate on batteries then?”
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t operate at all. It just is.”
“Sounds very Existential.”
Penny hadn’t been quite sure what she meant by that remark, but Bix beamed when she said it. “Now you dig,” he told her. “Existential is just what it is. Things are what they are and that’s why they are. This orgone box is an orgone box and it collects and concentrates orgones. That’s all.”
“You mean it’s just a plain wooden box?”
“No. The inside is lined with sheet metal.”
“What’s that for?”
“So the orgones don’t leak out.”
“Oh . . . And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s al1.” Bix was naked now. He opened the orgone box, settled himself inside it, and then closed it around his body. It covered him from toe to neck. Only his head protruded. “All We have to do now is wait,” he said.
“How long will it take?”
“Oh, not long. Ten, fifteen minutes maybe.”
“I’ll go make the drinks while we’re waiting,” Penny said.
While she was measuring out the gin and vermouth, Penny was feeling a little depressed. The things a girl has to go through to lose her virginity, she thought to herself. And even if the orgone box worked, she might not loose it. Judging from the sex direction Bix had been heading toward back at the brothel, Penny could look forward to nothing more than once again swallowing her desire.
“I’m primed.” Bix stood in the doorway, looking at her.
“So am I.” Penny held out one of the martinis to him and then shrugged her shoulders sensually until the mink floated down her body to the floor. Now, except for the riding boots she wore, she, was as naked as Bix was.
Bix looked at the boots. “Tally-ho,” he said, striding toward her with a firm step. “Are you ready for the chase?”
“You don’t have to chase me,” Penny murmured. “Just mount and we’re off and running, hey?” Bix quipped.
“Right on the bridle path.”
“The hell you say!” The remark gave Bix reason to pause. “Who said anything about marriage?”
“Certainly not me,” Penny told him. “You’re misunderstanding. Don’t be so nervous. Come on now. On to the starting gate. And-— They’re off!”