his hand briefly on my shoulder and then took it away.
“You’d probably hate her, Pops; you’d probably hate everyone I know and everything I’m doing this summer”
“Yes, I probably would,” said my father.
“After I leave you I’m going to go to her house to sleep with her,” I said, and then we hit bottom and the sudden cessation of motion made me feel sick; my father said that he was not impressed.
10
SEX AND VIOLENCE
J UNE WANED; STILL J ANE Bellwether remained in New Mexico, calling Cleveland only once, to tell him they were through (“Does that make nine times or ten?” Cleveland asked her); by the twenty-ninth of June, Phlox and I were firmly ensconced in a “thing” that she was—prematurely, I felt—calling love, although I was beginning to wonder, and listened one night to “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” thinking: Oh, Smokey.
Phlox had taken to coming over to the Terrace every night after I got off work, and we would sit on the steps smoking cigarettes, and sometimes marijuana, or would drink tequila, and just eat the limes and lick the salt from the tiny pouches of each other’s hands. One night there was an enormous full moon, fat and hanging right above the horizon, as though too debauched and decrepit to rise any farther. We were stoned, and the black Romanesque steeple of the church on the corner stood silhouetted against the moon, entwined with the shapes of branches of a dead tree, like an establishing shot from a vampire film, and I said this. She pressed herself against me, her teeth chattering.
“Why are you afraid?” I said.
“I don’t know. Because vampires are so beautiful,” she said.
Another time she wept bitterly for an hour because Arthur had been cruel to her at work that day and told her she looked fat in her plaid dress.
“I know he’s just jealous of me,” she said. “Art, I know he wants you.”
“Nah,” I said. “He likes you.”
“Art!” she shouted. “Listen to me, and don’t baby me. I know he wants you, he wants to have sex with you, homosexual sex, disgusting homosexual sex with my Artichoke,” which was what she called me.
“Phlox, what do you have against gays? I like all the gay guys I’ve met, Arthur especially, but all of his friends too. They’re nice guys.”
“Sure they’re nice guys, they’re beautiful, and it’s a goddamn shame they’re a bunch of hideous fags. Some of them are more beautiful than I am.”
I denied this.
On the twenty-ninth of June, the night Phlox told me that she loved me, that Daniel was a fool and had an ugly purple penis and I need never worry about him again, she read to me from The Story of O , in the yellow light of my stoop. (I had read this book years before, before my mother died, finding it among her books, and I had failed to understand it. Only the scenes of more conventional sex had excited me, and the whips and owl masks and labial piercing I had found confusing, exotic, and disagreeable.) When Phlox read to me from the book, sitting up against the bricks with her knees to her chest, in a green leather miniskirt with no panties, I was shocked to discover what an evil book it was, although nicely written, and the thought that it was her favorite disturbed me. Nevertheless I felt the thrill of her voice and got an erection, which I could not disguise, and which, reaching over, she freed and relieved me of, and then without stopping her reading, she relieved herself.
“That was wonderful,” she said when she had tired of reading.
“I want to walk you home,” I said, and handed her sweater to her.
“Art, I want to stay with you.”
“I’d rather walk you home.”
“Arthur, I love you,” she said.
“I refuse to flog you,” I said.
She burst out laughing, and told me what a silly boy I was. And, as my father might have put it, indeed I was.
The next night Cleveland and Arthur and I got drunk and decided to go off to Cleveland’s family’s summer house in upstate New
“You’d probably hate her, Pops; you’d probably hate everyone I know and everything I’m doing this summer”
“Yes, I probably would,” said my father.
“After I leave you I’m going to go to her house to sleep with her,” I said, and then we hit bottom and the sudden cessation of motion made me feel sick; my father said that he was not impressed.
10
SEX AND VIOLENCE
J UNE WANED; STILL J ANE Bellwether remained in New Mexico, calling Cleveland only once, to tell him they were through (“Does that make nine times or ten?” Cleveland asked her); by the twenty-ninth of June, Phlox and I were firmly ensconced in a “thing” that she was—prematurely, I felt—calling love, although I was beginning to wonder, and listened one night to “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” thinking: Oh, Smokey.
Phlox had taken to coming over to the Terrace every night after I got off work, and we would sit on the steps smoking cigarettes, and sometimes marijuana, or would drink tequila, and just eat the limes and lick the salt from the tiny pouches of each other’s hands. One night there was an enormous full moon, fat and hanging right above the horizon, as though too debauched and decrepit to rise any farther. We were stoned, and the black Romanesque steeple of the church on the corner stood silhouetted against the moon, entwined with the shapes of branches of a dead tree, like an establishing shot from a vampire film, and I said this. She pressed herself against me, her teeth chattering.
“Why are you afraid?” I said.
“I don’t know. Because vampires are so beautiful,” she said.
Another time she wept bitterly for an hour because Arthur had been cruel to her at work that day and told her she looked fat in her plaid dress.
“I know he’s just jealous of me,” she said. “Art, I know he wants you.”
“Nah,” I said. “He likes you.”
“Art!” she shouted. “Listen to me, and don’t baby me. I know he wants you, he wants to have sex with you, homosexual sex, disgusting homosexual sex with my Artichoke,” which was what she called me.
“Phlox, what do you have against gays? I like all the gay guys I’ve met, Arthur especially, but all of his friends too. They’re nice guys.”
“Sure they’re nice guys, they’re beautiful, and it’s a goddamn shame they’re a bunch of hideous fags. Some of them are more beautiful than I am.”
I denied this.
On the twenty-ninth of June, the night Phlox told me that she loved me, that Daniel was a fool and had an ugly purple penis and I need never worry about him again, she read to me from The Story of O , in the yellow light of my stoop. (I had read this book years before, before my mother died, finding it among her books, and I had failed to understand it. Only the scenes of more conventional sex had excited me, and the whips and owl masks and labial piercing I had found confusing, exotic, and disagreeable.) When Phlox read to me from the book, sitting up against the bricks with her knees to her chest, in a green leather miniskirt with no panties, I was shocked to discover what an evil book it was, although nicely written, and the thought that it was her favorite disturbed me. Nevertheless I felt the thrill of her voice and got an erection, which I could not disguise, and which, reaching over, she freed and relieved me of, and then without stopping her reading, she relieved herself.
“That was wonderful,” she said when she had tired of reading.
“I want to walk you home,” I said, and handed her sweater to her.
“Art, I want to stay with you.”
“I’d rather walk you home.”
“Arthur, I love you,” she said.
“I refuse to flog you,” I said.
She burst out laughing, and told me what a silly boy I was. And, as my father might have put it, indeed I was.
The next night Cleveland and Arthur and I got drunk and decided to go off to Cleveland’s family’s summer house in upstate New
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