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It is a pleasant evening, no indication of trouble at all: even some undercurrent of anticipation for the sex which will follow until, for no apparent reason, she shakes her head, breaking off from a very funny discussion of certain types she has met in women’s liberation and says, “You’re an anachronism, you know. The whole thing is. It’s not going to last long at all.”

“What isn’t going to last long? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I am slightly drunk or at least verging toward that line and am trying to preserve the mood, but I know her well and it is clear that the evening has already taken a different course.

“The newspaper, I mean. The whole gig. I figured it out; I don’t know why I didn’t see that a long time ago. You’re just playing out on a transitional state of the culture. The culture is starting to go free, but it’s caught between the old Puritan horrors and the new ethics the kids are setting up, the whole question of life-style in the suburbs, and it just isn’t making the adjustment yet. So the paper comes into the vacuum. You’re just playing on the old Puritan fear and hatred of sex, making it ugly and disgusting, but packaging it in a way that makes it seem new and bold. You’re just playing on the sickness of the culture.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t discuss this anymore.”

“Oh, but I’m not discussing it,” she says. “I’m telling you why I’m not going to discuss it anymore. It doesn’t bother me now, you see. It used to when I thought that you had started something entirely new, but now I see that it isn’t; it’s the same ugly old bag and it’s going nowhere. Just as soon as some more people begin to get their heads straight, the whole thing’s going to go. It’s just a symptom of change.”

I am still willing to be agreeable, trying to be mellow, although a certain nasty knife of indigestion has begun in my stomach and the smells of the place have turned rancid. “That’s true,” I say. “I’ve pointed that out myself many times. The paper is just a transitional thing; we’re trying to shake people up and get them to accept sex as part of life, and when it becomes matter-of-fact, of course the paper is going to go away. It’s just a signpost on the way to cultural health, I hope. Maybe within our lifetime — ”

She takes a cautious sip of wine and shakes her head vehemently, “That’s what I mean,” she says, “it’s not a question of a lifetime. It’s not something in the far-off future. I mean, it’s something very soon. No more than five years at the tops, maybe less. Two I would think. And it could be as little as six months.”

“I don’t think we can straighten out everybody’s head in six months.”

“No, but enough heads are getting straight without having anything at all to do with the paper. In the first place, the people who read the paper aren’t the ones that matter anyway; they just act and react to what’s really going on. You have no idea how fast things are happening these days; I think you’re too wrapped up in all that nonsense even to take a look around. You know, Walter, you used to be a very curious, interested kind of person; you aren’t anymore. Things are changing so fast that you wouldn’t even know it.
I’m
changing in ways you couldn’t understand. Everybody’s changing and you’re changing too but not fast enough; it’s going much faster than you think, Walter, and it’s really just
beginning
to change, if you know what I’m saying. I don’t think you have any idea of where we’ll be ten years from now.
I
don’t but at least I can say that and try to swing with it, but you can only look at the future in terms of the way that things used to be or are now and that isn’t enough. You know, Walter,” she says, taking a roll and peeling it, looking at me with bright interest as her spectacles take a gleam from the candlelight and cast a wicked dart straight into my eye, “I don’t think you understand a single thing that’s going on today. You got hold of something which was a little bit of a truth and then you had the guts to act it out and I’ll give you that much credit, but you haven’t had an idea since and you haven’t known for two years what was really going on. And now the whole thing’s going to come down around you, faster than you could think, and you’re going to be left in the cold without a crutch. Poor Walter,” she says and puts her palm over the back of my hand, rubs it absently, looks into my eyes, licks her lips, “poor Walter and it’s so cold out there. And they won’t even throw you a crutch in the snow.”

“You’re wrong,” I say. “You’re all wrong. You don’t understand me at all.”

“I won’t discuss it anymore. I mean, I just wanted to say that one thing, and that was the end of it. There really isn’t anything else to say about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to.”

“You’re all wrong.”

“I said I won’t discuss it, Walter. Now, let’s try to have a nice evening.”

So I try to have a nice evening, but the evening is not nice anymore, and much later, fucking her, I try to make her scream. It is almost impossible. I have never had so much trouble that way with her before, and I work her over, tongue to cunt, lips to nipple, finders to ass, mouth to ear, prick to thigh, holding myself back in a cold agony of suspension which I know I will sustain as long as necessary, move over her finally, skillfully and split her with a grunt and she begins, in the fucking, at last to reciprocate; I hear her making sounds as I fuck her but as she starts the last orgasmic scream I do not know if it is a wail or if instead I have only worked so hard, come so late, moved so stiffly to yank out of her a perfect, sustained bellow of release and triumph.

We receive a threatening phone call. A bomb has been hidden in our offices and will detonate within fifteen minutes of the time of the call. Oddly, it is the first such incident in our history; perhaps we have been regarded for too long as threateners ourselves rather than victims, but circumstances alter as our status improves. The caller says that he is an agent of the Lamb of God and hangs up. The police are called and in the interim, Virginia, the two faggarts and I stand on the street in the September mist, huddling against the building and trying to avoid the plumes of smoke which come from a manhole opened in front of our building. Within the manhole, workmen swear colorfully, talking about what they think they see in the guts of the city.

The police arrive, unenthusiastically, in two patrol cars and go to check the premises. The threat as reported was not serious enough, it seems, to warrant the bomb squad. In three or four minutes they are down, chewing gum, saying that the premises are perfectly safe and we are free to return. I am invited to file a formal complaint but feel this is pointless since the caller is unidentifiable. I ask what the liability will be if there is a bomb after all and it explodes when we are back in the building, incinerating all of us.

“No bomb, friend,” one of the patrolmen says. “Anyway, you’d be surprised what’s going on in this city. Maybe ten thousand bomb scares a day now; if you checked every one out thorough, you’d have no one in the precincts and you’d have no one at work. Maybe one out of a hundred thousand is really serious but it’s a percentage game. Anyway, you’re safe. There’s nothing up there except a lotta pictures. What kind of outfit you got there anyway? My brother-in-law buys that paper but I never touch it.”

We thank the policemen for their services and go upstairs in the creaking elevator that moves as if it were being dragged up by crippled gnomes, hand over hand. The office is in some disarray; the police have ransacked our inventory and taken several of the choice items, not only off the desks but the walls. While none of it is irreplaceable, it is all quite irritating and one of the faggarts, Donald I think (they are simply undifferentiable; this is not my problem but theirs), says that we should certainly file formal charges against these police; there is no excuse for it and if we are not entitled to equal protection under law, who is? “They still remember that business up in the Bronx,” Donald says with an inflected precision and goes back to his desk, shaking his head. He will have nothing more to do with it. Jim goes over to him, leans near, whispers something and Donald seems more cheerful.

“This is such a hateful city, the people in it are so full of hate, how can you live in a city where everyone wants to blow up everyone else?” Virginia wants to know. I find that there is no easy answer I can give her; I tell her that perhaps she is exaggerating the situation and that most people do not want anyone blown up except those forces or institutions nearest their condition, and it is only the accumulation of rage that makes things difficult. She is not pleased with this but, shaking her head, decides to let it pass. We begin to make some order out of the offices; it is quite a mess and we see that certain file cabinets have been ransacked and a portfolio of unprintable photos depicting the act of homosexual love have been spat upon.

An hour later the phone rings and we are threatened again. The caller says that the first time was a dry run but this one is incontestably serious and we have five minutes before the whole building goes at a quarter to noon. This time he has adopted a rich, Slavic accent, somewhat reminiscent of voices I heard in my own humble youth, and something within me instinctively yearns toward him as he completes his instruction and crisply hangs up.

We debate the issue for a few moments and decide not to call the police. We remain at our desks and conduct the business of the morning, such as it is. At a quarter of twelve the building is not blown up so I conclude that we have all been saved.

At three o’clock the caller tries again but finds only me in the office, Virginia having gone home ill and the faggarts to their quarters on some mysterious assignation. I tell him that I have lost interest in the whole thing; I’m sorry but I simply can’t be involved anymore and cut the connection on him. He does not call back and we never hear from him again. When a routine police follow-up comes in the mail, I throw it in the wastebasket and put the precinct on the list of complimentary subscriptions, three copies in all.

A letter arrives from the midwest stating that the writer has used B&E magic lovemaker salve on his penis and his organ contracted a severe fungus illness which resulted in infection and its near-amputation. He has been told on good medical authority that he is likely never to be capable of intercourse again. His wife has contracted some exotic illness as well and her vagina smells, even after repeated washings, like a “potted palm.” The correspondent says that he is canceling his subscription effective immediately and intends to see his attorneys about the possibility of direct legal action against us.

I forward the letter, without comment, to the B&E Company with their bill. In a rash moment, I take the ointment from its place in the cabinet and dispose of it in the incinerator chute. Now and then I begin to think that my thumb and forefinger have a peculiar complexion to them but assure myself that it is only a trickery of light and that all is as it was and will ever be.

I attend a special lecture course given at one of the evening colleges in the city as a participant in a seminar on the “new publishing.” The publisher of a pornographic book house is on the panel with me as well as an intense bearded man who says that he is interested in the “cinema of juxtaposition,” most of the juxtaposition having to do with naked bodies. The moderator, who writes a column of sociology and comment for one of the weekly newspapers, has banded us together to bring some meaningful insight into the changing mores and standards of publishing but quickly finds himself defeated by the energy of the panel and the responses of the audience and retires to one side of the stage taking notes.

A desultory discussion leads us nowhere in particular — the publisher monopolizes most of the time talking about the truly outstanding list of brilliant new literary discoveries he has put together to fight the fight for freedom — and then the floor is thrown open for questioning. The questioning is unbelievably hostile and tends to focus upon our presumed sexual inadequacies. The publisher is asked about his marital history and people want to know why I seem to hate women so much. The cinema director creates a minor break in the pattern by confessing calmly that he is an exclusive homosexual (he calls it, however “monosexual” and, when the floor fails to understand this, must clarify it by shouting “homo, homo, homo!”) and that this has increased the truth and clarity of his art, but past the initial sensation of confession he falls completely out of interest; he has given his blood to the audience and there is nothing more. He sits sullenly to the side, his hands folded in his enormous, discontented lap, as the publisher and I, without help from the moderator, push off further questions. The publisher says that a distinction must be made between the erotic and pornographic which compare to one another as scotch to beer or representational painting to television ads but he is unable to make the distinction to the audience’s satisfaction, and when he sits I see that he is sweating. I am asked exactly how great are my weekly profits from the newspaper and what percentage of these profits I am donating to the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation front, the black resistance movement and “damaged peoples everywhere.” I try to point out that our profit margin is minimal but the audience is not satisfied. “You’re sucking the lifesblood from the bowels of dead people!” someone shouts, and a fine Gallic quiver comes over the publisher’s resonant face. He turns to me and whispers that it would seem to be a very good idea to leave now. The audience catches his gestures and begins to make cries about cowardice. The publisher rises again, goes to the microphone and says that he has been fighting baboons and philistines all his life and he will continue as long as he has strength, but he did not expect, did never expect, to find them in such a quarter as this. “You’re dead, baby, you’re behind the times; you’d better liberate yourselves and forget about the rest of us cats,” someone shrieks and there is a perfect bellow of applause and cheers at this. When it quiets the voice shouts, “If this is an example of what liberation can make of you, I’d rather stay pure, wouldn’t you, friends?” And there is more applause yet and the publisher, swearing, returns to his seat. The cinema director makes delicate gestures toward the audience and pleads for decency and self-respect but no one listens.