"Have you ever done it?"
"No."
"Well, neither have I, and wouldn't it be a tragedy if we went off to war, maybe even got killed, and hadn't ever done it? That's why we've got to plan a campaign to get girls up to this room. And, incidentally, getting your wick dipped is a politer way of saying fuck. We have all kinds of ways to avoid using the word. Don't ever use it. You'll shock the eyeteeth out of people. We say" — he raised his voice a register and spoke through pursed lips — "we say, 'have sexual intercourse.' We say, 'make love.' We say, 'go to bed.' Or we say, 'get our rocks off.' Anything to avoid saying 'fuck.' "
Jonas grinned. "I've been denied an essential element of my education," he said — although it wasn't true, because he had heard much talk of this kind at Culver. He tipped his glass and finished his drink. "I will be grateful to you for more instruction."
Jerry refilled their shot glasses. "What's between our legs is a penis. Isn't that a terrible word? Guys call it 'cock' or 'peter' or 'dick.' What girls have is a vagina, another terrible clinical word. Guys call it a 'cunt,' chiefly. But don't ever use any of these words, the polite ones or the other ones, to girls. They'll go ga-ga. In fact, don't talk about these things at all. Except to guys."
Jonas laughed. "We have all these funny words and can't use them."
"Anyway," said Jerry, "we're virgins. I don't know about you, but I intend to remedy that as soon as I can."
"Why didn't you remedy it before?"
"The family. The neighborhood. Why didn't you?"
"The same, I suppose. Actually, I don't even know very many girls."
"Well, tell me, what did you put down on your card as your religion?"
"I wrote nothing. It was optional."
Jerry clapped his hand to his forehead in mock grief. "Why couldn't you have put down Catholic? Then you'd have been invited to a church and a Catholic youth club, where you could have met not only girls but naive girls."
Jonas shrugged. He had begun to learn something of what rye whiskey did to a person.
"Girls, Jonas! Nooky. Poontang. Don't you enjoy seeing their tight little asses twitch when they walk?"
"Well ... I haven't watched ... that much."
"Start watching! Start looking. Look at asses. Look at boobs. Concentrate on the job at hand, which is get our wicks dipped before we have to go into uniform."
7
When Jerry learned that Jonas could not go home for Christmas break — the journey was too far, and wartime restrictions on transportation might have made it impossible — he invited Jonas to come home with him. Jonas accepted the invitation, went home with Jerry Rabin, and lived for two weeks with a Jewish family in Brooklyn. It was a rewarding experience. He even learned a bit of another language: Yiddish.
Neither Jonas nor Jerry had by then gotten his wick dipped. They remained virgins. But at Jerry's prompting Jonas had begun to look more closely at girls: appreciatively, speculatively. Ironically, he looked that way at Jerry's sister, Susan. He noticed the size of her breasts. He studied the way her backside twitched when she walked. He studied that so closely he realized he had to be careful not to be so obvious. Lying in his bed in the guest room, he fantasized a faint knock on the door, then Susan coming in, undressing, slipping into his bed. In real fact, he would not have touched her. She was his friend's sister! But he found the fantasy delicious.
8
Spring break came, and they hadn't hauled their ashes.
It occurred to Jonas that they were too obvious. Girls they met knew what they wanted. The girls didn't want the same thing.
Finally, in April, Jerry succeeded in persuading two girls to visit the dorm room. They were not supposed to be there, so they had to climb up a fire escape, enter the dorm through a window, and slip along the hall to the boys' room — which process alone had discouraged several girls from accepting an invitation.
They were town girls. That is to say, they lived in Cambridge. One was still in high school. The other had graduated and worked as a waitress. Both lived with their parents and had to be home by eleven.
Neither was exquisitely beautiful. Helen was dark-haired, brown-eyed, and chubby. Ruth was blond and thinner. Her face was marred by pimples — only two that evening, but the marks of others remained on her cheeks.
None of these four young people had any doubt why the two girls had come to visit the two boys in their dormitory room. Only two questions remained: Which girl would be intimate with which boy, and what were the terms of this visit?
The two girls, it turned out, expected to be paid five dollars apiece. Jerry shook his head firmly. Maybe two, he said.
Jonas seized Jerry by the sleeve of his gray tweed jacket and shoved him out into the hall. "Listen, goddammit," he said. "Didn't you ever read Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain?"
"What's that got to do with —"
"All their lives the 'pilgrims' had dreamed of going for a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. When the boatmen asked for eight dollars, they offered four, and the boatmen rowed away. Those 'pilgrims' never did get to sail on the Sea of Galilee. Because of four dollars divided among eight men. I'm going to give one of those girls five dollars and get my wick dipped. I suggest you give five to the other one."
Jonas strode back into the room and handed a five-dollar bill to Helen, the dark, chubby one. For his decisiveness he got his choice. Jerry would later complain of that, but for now he grudgingly counted out five one-dollar bills to Ruth.
Once again decisive, Jonas led Helen to the maroon-plush-upholstered sofa that was the centerpiece of the living room. His eyes shooting annoyance, Jerry took Ruth into the bedroom.
Helen undressed, directly without diffidence or hesitation. When she was naked, she helped Jonas undress. "Y’ know," she said, "I bet this here's your first time."
"Not really," he said.
She lifted his penis in her hand. "Well," she said. "Y' got what it takes, anyway. Y' ready?"
"Sure." He didn't know the term foreplay but had supposed there would be something before the act. But he didn't want her to suppose he didn't know what to do. "Sure. Let's do it."
She opened her purse and took out a Coin-Pak. Stripping the foil off, she pulled out the rubber and stretched it on her fingers. "Not circumcised," she muttered. "Bet y' friend is. Anyway, y' want it skinned back?"
"No."
She rolled the condom onto his erect penis. Then she lay on her back and spread her legs. "C'mon."
It was purely mechanical. Yet the satiation was so complete that it exhausted him. When he was finished and dropped his weight on her hips, Helen tousled his hair and patted his back: the first sign from her of anything like affection. He became conscious that his skin and hers were wet and their sweat was mingling. Their odors mingled. It had not occurred to him until then to kiss her, and she had not offered herself to be kissed, but he kissed her now and felt her tongue coming between his lips and into his mouth.
When Jerry and Ruth came out of the bedroom, Jonas was on his back under Helen, he was in her, and she was moaning quietly as she rotated her hips. His eyes were closed. So were hers. They were not aware that the other couple stood gaping, watching them.
"Well, Jee-zuss Christ!" said Ruth.
10
1
HE RETURNED TO CAMBRIDGE IN THE FALL OF 1943. in February 1944 he registered for the draft, using as his address the dormitory where he had lived the past year with Jerry Rabin. Then he enlisted in the United States Army.