I stopped myself before I really landed into her because it sounded just like arguments I’d had with my ex-wife, not seduction at all. “Come away with me,” was all I was really trying to say, but come away to what? To a lousy tenement apartment without electricity? Parker was a celebrity, the cocksman, the Name. I was a nobody. I had no bargaining position. I suddenly realized that ginch like Bliss was not for me, just like shooting pheasant was not up my alley. Ginch and pheasant were reserved for the aristocrats of life, the hustlers, cocksmen, and celebrities. My timing was off, and theirs was always perfect.
As if to prove the truth of my perception about timing, Parker walked into the loft at just that moment, when Bliss was looking at me with stoned, empty eyes, as if I were a frog who was never going to make it to prince status. He had a guy with him who looked like he sold ties in a fag boutique, or dressed hair in Queens. He wore a Hawaiian shirt over tight pre-shrunk jeans and a silver beard that looked like he kept it trimmed with toenail clippers.
“You got a script, man?” Parker said to me, dumping the Daily News in Bliss’s lap. (A lap, I should add, that when spread dripped my semen – my precious 100,000 sperm – onto the couch. I don’t think Parker even noticed. Bliss plunged right into the Sunday funnies.)
I pointed toward the manuscript I’d brought while Parker introduced me to his friend.
“Nick, this is Terry Chiffon. He’s gonna direct Parker’s Angels for me. The best talent in the business.”
We shook hands suspiciously. Terry parked himself on the couch next to Bliss and immediately began stroking her thigh. I watched his hand like a gunfighter watching his enemy’s hand as it moves closer to the.45 strapped to his leg, feeling that something was going to happen that I wouldn’t like at all.
“Has Bliss been taking care of you?” Parker asked, while rummaging through the pages of my script.
“I fucked her.”
“Good for you. You looked like you needed it.”
“Don’t you give a shit?”
“What about?” he asked distractedly. Maybe he was trying to figure out my typing.
“About me fucking her.”
“She’s ginch, man. Ginch is made to be fucked. Don’t you know that yet? There’s millions of hungry pussies where she came from. She knows it. It keeps her toed to the mark.”
I was about to argue with him – full of theories I’d learned from women – when I saw Terry’s hand insert itself into Bliss’s cunt.
She didn’t drop the funny papers. I watched as he stuck five fingers into the slit I’d just oiled for him. With the other hand he unzipped himself and pulled out a long thin cock. Then he looked at Parker.
“Is it cool, baby?”
Parker’s response was immediate: “You know it’s cool. You’re the director.”
While we watched, Terry spread Bliss’s legs and entered her. She looked at him over the top of the paper she was reading and then went back to it, while Terry jumped away. She was a sphinx; I realized then what I hadn’t seen before: she was every man’s woman, and no man’s. We all fed her emptiness.
“That’s some woman you’ve got there,” I said to Parker.
“The sixties brought them all out, man. Chicks suddenly discovered they had cunts. Bliss is a dime-a-dozen chick. They’re hanging from every tree. All you have to do is reach up and pick one.”
Parker looked at me like I wasn’t in possession of all my marbles. Rejection must have been written on my face like the words on a billboard. He was reassuring.
“She’s just a ginch, man. Just a ginch.”
I looked at Terry fucking Bliss and winced, remembering how her tongue had felt on my cock, thinking miserably of all the avenues of life that were closed to me.
“She’s like a fucking machine. A doll,” I said.
“Ginch,” Parker repeated.
BLACK LILY by Thomas S. Roche
For Paul Bowles
THE SUN CAME up.
She might be asleep. It certainly seemed likely. If she wasn’t then perhaps she had been, recently. She had stopped walking. Whether she was sitting or standing, it was impossible to be sure. She was conscious only of the newborn sun and of the infinite world of sand dunes stretching all about her. Even the hunger and thirst were immaterial. There existed only the sky and the sand.
“Amelia,” she said, not knowing why she said it. It was a while later that she understood that it was her own name.
Her clothes hung destroyed on her body.
Things began to come back to her, in vague impressions, as if they were unimportant and without immediacy.
She could recall the shouts of the men at the fortress as she ran. There had been a few scattered shots. Half-heartedly, she wondered why no one had chased her, but it seemed that didn’t matter. They had taken Jean; he had been the one they wanted, anyway. She was just along for the ride, and she didn’t seem to make much difference in this world, where there was only the sky and the sand.
It seemed that the memories of the fortress dissolved into nothing and she was left without a past or a future. She supposed there were worse things.
Late in the morning, a caravan happened by. It took her a long time to become aware of it. By the time she noticed, the caravan was almost gone. There were many camels led by four or five men dressed in black. She leapt up and ran to the caravan, without knowing why she was doing it. The man was tall, swathed in garments of black, his face shrouded. He regarded her calmly.
“Is there room for me?” she asked in French, instinctively assuming the man would understand. She wasn’t sure where she had learned the language. It came to her as out of a dream. Perhaps, then, she was French.
He made a gesture to indicate he didn’t understand. She motioned at the caravan, trying to indicate movement. The man looked at her for a long time. Finally he shrugged and motioned toward one of the camels. She let him help her onto the animal. The foul smell of dung and animal sweat was somehow comforting. She felt the thick bundles behind her, covered by blankets. She was suddenly incredibly hungry. She reached beneath one of the blankets and found a bundled mass of twigs and flowers. A crumpled blossom came off in her hand. She brought it to her face to smell it.
The man was upon her, taking the flower away from her. He slapped her wrist and replaced the thing under the blanket. He shouted at her in a language she did not understand.
The woman looked down at him blankly. Perhaps the flower was valuable. The man seemed to be cursing at her again, and the woman looked down, sheepish.
“Amelia,” she said, looking up, still not sure why she said it.
The man gestured dismissively at her and began to lead the camel forward. The woman closed her eyes.
A great weight came over her. Slowly, she drifted into a trance, until she slumped in the saddle. There under the sun she fell into nothing.
When she awoke, the sun slanted across her from a high window. She had no idea how long she had slept, nor did she care. She looked around, dazed. She was in a small room, stretched on a thin mat on a clean floor. The walls were hung with rich cloth, and a houkah as high as her waist sat in the corner. She had been placed in black clothing identical to that the people in the caravan had worn. Slipping her hand under the robe, she felt that she was still wearing her clothes, the cotton slacks and shirt from Bloomingdales. Outside the shirt, she had a cloth tied around her breasts, cinched tight. It was uncomfortable, and puzzled her. But she was wearing her Western clothes. Thank God. Then even her concern dissolved and she wondered to herself what would have happened if the man from the caravan had disrobed her. It all seemed so immaterial. Possession of her body seemed such a nebulous concept. She relaxed into the mat and faded in and out of consciousness.