There was a party afterwards in a large house. After an hour or two I found myself between two women. One was a blonde, she looked as if she was carved out of ivory, with beautiful eyes and a beautiful body. She was with her boyfriend.
"Chinaski," she said after a while, "I'm going with you."
"Wait a minute," I said, "you're with your boyfriend."
"Oh shit," she said, "he's nobody! I'm going with you!"
I looked at the boy. He had tears in his eyes. He was trembling. He was in love, poor fellow.
The girl on the other side of me had dark hair. Her body was as good but she wasn't as facially attractive.
"Come with me," she said.
"What?"
"I said, take me with you."
"Wait a minute."
I turned back to the blonde. "Listen, you're beautiful but I can't go with you. I don't want to hurt your friend."
"Fuck that son-of-a-bitch. He's shit."
The girl with dark hair pulled at my arm. "Take me with you now or I'm leaving."
"All right," I said, "let's go."
I found Mcintosh. He didn't look as if he was doing much. I guess he didn't like parties.
"Come on, Mac, drive us back to the hotel."
There was more beer. The dark girl told me her name was Iris Duarte. She was one-half Indian and she said she worked as a belly dancer. She stood up and shook it. It looked good.
"You really need a costume to get the full effect," she said.
"No, I don't."
"I mean, I need one, to make it look good, you know."
She looked Indian. She had an Indian nose and mouth. She appeared to be about 23, dark brown eyes, she spoke quietly and had that great body. She had read 3 or 4 of my books. All right.
We drank another hour then went to bed. I ate her up but when I mounted I just stroked and stroked without effect. Too bad.
In the morning I brushed my teeth, threw cold water on my face and went back to bed. I started playing with her cunt. It got wet and so did I. I mounted. I ground it in, thinking of all that body, all that good young body. She took all I had to give her. It was a good one. It was a very good one. Afterwards, Iris went to the bathroom.
I stretched out thinking about how good it had been. Iris reappeared and got back into the bed. We didn't speak. An hour passed. Then we did it all over again.
We cleaned up and dressed. She gave me her address and phone number, I gave her mine. She really seemed fond of me. Mcintosh knocked about 15 minutes later. We drove Iris to an intersection near her place of work. It turned out she really worked as a waitress; the belly-dancing was an ambition. I kissed her goodbye. She got out of the car. She turned and waved, then walked off. I watched that body as it walked away.
"Chinaski scores again," said Mcintosh, as he headed for the airport.
"Think nothing of it," I said.
"I had some luck myself," he said.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I got your blonde."
"What?"
"Yes," he laughed, "I did."
"Drive me to the airport, bastard!"
I was back in Los Angeles for 3 days. I had a date with Debra that night. The phone rang. "Hank, this is Iris!"
"Oh, Iris, what a surprise! How's it going?" "Hank, I'm flying to L.A. I'm coming to see you!" "Great! When?"
"I'll fly down the Wednesday before Thanksgiving." "Thanksgiving?"
"And I can stay until the following Monday!" "O.K." "Do you have a pen? I'll give you my flight number."
That night Debra and I had dinner at a nice place down by the seashore. The tables weren't crowded together and they specialized in sea food. We ordered a bottle of white wine and waited for our meal. Debra looked better than I had seen her for some time, but she told me her job was getting to be too much. She was going to have to hire another girl. And it was hard to find anybody efficient. People were so inept.
"Yes," I said.
"Have you heard from Sara?"
"I phoned her. We had had a little argument. I sort of patched it up."
"Have you seen her since you got back from Canada?"
"No."
"I've ordered a 25 pound turkey for Thanksgiving. Can you carve?"
"Sure."
"Don't drink too much tonight. You know what happens when you drink too much. You become a wet noodle."
"O.K."
Debra reached over and touched my hand. "My sweet dear old wet noodle!"
I only got one bottle of wine for after dinner. We drank it slowly, sitting up in her bed watching her giant t.v. The first program was lousy. The second was better. It was about a sex pervert and a subnormal farmboy. The pervert's head was transplanted onto the farmboy's body by a mad doctor and the body escaped with the two heads and ran about the countryside doing all sorts of horrible things. It put me in a good mood.
After the bottle of wine and the two-headed boy I mounted Debra and had some good luck for a change. I gave her a long slamming gallop full of unexpected variables and inventiveness before I finally shot it into her.
In the morning Debra asked me to stay and wait for her to get home from work. She promised to cook a nice dinner. "All right," I said.
I tried to sleep after she left but I couldn't. I was wondering about Thanksgiving, how I was going to tell her that I couldn't be there. It bothered me. I got up and walked the floors. I took a bath. Nothing helped. Maybe Iris would change her mind, maybe her plane would crash. I could phone Debra Thanksgiving morning to tell her I was coming after all.
I walked about feeling worse and worse. Perhaps it was because I had stayed over instead of going home. It was like prolonging the agony. What kind of shit was I? I could certainly play some nasty, unreal games. What was my motive? Was I trying to get even for something? Could I keep on telling myself that it was merely a matter of research, a simple study of the female? I was simply letting things happen without thinking about them. I wasn't considering anything but my own selfish, cheap pleasure. I was like a spoiled high school kid. I was worse than any whore; a whore took your money and nothing more. I tinkered with lives and souls as if they were my playthings. How could I call myself a man? How could I write poems? What did I consist of? I was a bush-league de Sade, without his intellect. A murderer was more straightforward and honest than I was. Or a rapist. I didn't want my soul played with, mocked, pissed on; I knew that much at any rate. I was truly no good. I could feel it as I walked up and down on the rug. No good. The worst part of it was that I passed myself off for exactly what I wasn't-a good man. I was able to enter people's lives because of their trust in me. I was doing my dirty work the easy way. I was writing The Love Tale of the Hyena.
I stood in the center of the room, surprised by my thoughts.
I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed, and I was crying. I could feel the tears with my fingers. My brain whirled, yet I felt sane. I couldn't understand what was happening to me.
I picked up the phone and dialed Sara at her health food store.
"You busy?" I asked.
"No, I just opened up. Are you all right? You sound funny."
"I'm at the bottom."
"What is it?"
"Well, I told Debra I'd spend Thanksgiving with her. She's counting on it. But now something has happened."
"What?"
"Well, I didn't tell you before. You and I haven't had sex yet, you know. Sex makes things different."
"What happened?"
"I met a belly dancer in Canada."
"You did? And you're in love?"
"No, I'm not in love."
"Wait, here's a customer. Can you hold the line?"
"All right…"
I sat there holding the telephone to my ear. I was still naked. I looked down at my penis: you dirty son-of-a-bitch! Do you know all the heartache you cause with your dumb hunger?