The Devil's Sperm Is Cold (18 page)

She closed her eyes and lay there for a long while. Manuel rocked back and forth, his mind laid waste by the entire experience, not only the sensations and feelings, but the fierce conflicting thoughts in his head.

He wanted to put his cock in his pants, put on his belt, and leave, to return to Alma, who was ready to offer him a full and satisfying life. And yet, he could not move. For what had happened had rocked him to his very foundations. And he knew that the sight of the last few minutes, of Joan’s sucking his cum into her, of the indescribable contrast between the implied degradation of the act and the beauty of her face and body, had imprinted an indelible image in his brain. She had done what she had done out of surrender to her finest instincts, and had, with that, presented him with the gift of seeing a deep-rooted fantasy come to life before his eyes.

Thus, with a woman who loved him, waiting to start an idyllic existence with him, and the woman who was his perfect sexual complement lying naked under him after having fucked him with everything she had and then having joyfully swallowed his cum, Manuel was paradoxically quite unhappy.

And at that point, the phone began to ring. It was Margaret, wanting to know why Joan had not yet arrived at her apartment.

Jack waited for Margaret to speak. She had called an hour earlier, distraught, needing to see him. They had been lovers, briefly, almost two years earlier, and had let their passion fall away in light of their mutual realization that neither wanted to pursue the relationship into anything like permanency. And like lovers who part as friends, they maintained a bond that was not contingent upon frequency of contact for its strength.

Margaret had made Jack privy to her plans for Centaur a month before she went to see Al Leeds. She wanted his opinion, as a salesman, about the possible success or failure of a new line such as she had in mind. His response had been both heartening and disillusioning.

“I can sell shit,” he said, “if it’s wrapped in the proper package.” And then had patted her rump and continued, “I hate to lay this on you, Maggie, but the kind of stuff you have in mind won’t be appreciated by more than a couple of thousand people. The rest will read anything if it has enough fucks and cunts and cums, and if the cover of the book turns them on, or if they’ve been told it’s chic. And that’s not just in pornography; the same is true in the so-called literary field. Real quality is rare; people to appreciate it are even rarer. So your line will sell as well as anything Lou has put out, and you probably won’t go under financially; but I don’t know if your dream of raising the pornographic consciousness of the nation will ever be anything but a fantasy.”

She had dismissed his gloom and accepted his economic optimism. To her surprise, she caught him looking at her in a way she hadn’t seen for a long time. And she made a mental note to think about whether she should fuck him again. It would certainly be pleasant, and it would definitely be good politics.

Now she sprawled in the large stuffed chair that dominated one corner of his Chelsea Hotel apartment. She wore sandals, stretch pants, and her inimitable knit turtleneck. He cast her an appraising glance. Not only her generous breasts with their splashy nipples, not just her full cunt that now bulged from between her thighs against the clinging fabric, but her entire sense of self, her intelligence, her ambition, her ability to calculate with coldness and to several decimal points exactly what she wanted and how she would go about getting it…all this he found enormously appealing.

Her glass was empty, and he walked across the room, picked it up, took it to the kitchenette that lay recessed against one wall, and filled it with ice and orange juice and vodka. He put it back on the table next to her, and she absentmindedly picked it up and sipped at it. Putting it down again, she lit a cigarette. The sounds of the splashing water and tinkling ice and glass being lifted and placed down, of the match against the book cover, of the inhalation and exhalation of smoke, all emerged distinct and sharp in the silent room.

Jack cracked his knuckles, adding another noise, and then he burst out, “Jesus Christ, Maggie, it’s getting like a Pinter play in here.”

She looked up at him as though she were first being made aware of his presence. She had come less to talk than to be with him, for she couldn’t stay in her apartment by herself any longer.

“I can’t get my mind off her,” she said.

“You think she’s gone for good?” he asked.

She blew out a blue cloud of smoke. “I don’t know. All I’ve been able to piece together is the little I told you. She was seen with Manuel in front of the office building at five o’clock three days ago. Her superintendent saw them leaving her apartment at ten o’clock the same night. She hasn’t been back since.”

“Did she have a suitcase with her? Did he notice?”

“A small overnight bag.”

Jack made a gesture of conciliation with his hand. “Well, you see,” he said. “It’s probably a short fling, I mean, he’s been after her ass for almost a year. Everyone in the office knows that. And they finally got to make it, and the sparks flew, and…” He put his hands in front of him, palms up. “Well, you know about all that. They’re kids. They probably think they’re in love.”

“He’s probably got his tongue in her mouth right now!” she yelled, sending a shiver of sudden fright through Jack’s body.

She looked at him, her eyes wide, her hands trembling. Her face was a mixture of fear and jealousy and embarrassment. She had not slept much since Joan disappeared.

Jack slumped down, sliding his back along the wall he was leaning against. He had not realized that she was so close to hysteria, and he decided that continuing to be casual was not going to be effective in reaching Margaret. He would have to find some method of getting inside her, and prying her loose from her immediate obsession.

“Are you afraid she’s not coming back?” he asked again.

She looked up at him sharply. “Don’t you see, Jack, it doesn’t matter. She’s with him now. She’s doing it with him now. He’s licking her cunt and she’s pressing his face into her, and urging him on, and calling him love names, and begging him to fuck her.”

“But, Maggie, you’ve seen the films Lou made. It’s nothing she hasn’t done before. I mean, I took her to an orgy, and she’s a real trouper.”

Margaret lit another cigarette from the one she was holding, ran one hand through her hair, which had not been in its bun for over a day, and shook her head. “I think it’s different, Jack,” she said. “The girl has had her body worked over like the rest of us, but she’s never been touched inside. You know? Her heart is protected. She’s never really fucked with love flowing through her. She’s a virgin, Jack. Do you understand? And he’s taking her, he’s eating that sweet cherry, he’s gorging himself on her, that no-good stinking greaseball, that dumb spic with his gorilla hands. He’s feeling her all over, and she’s knowing what it’s like to be felt for the first time. And it should be me with her. It should be me she opens to for the first time. It should be me she knows her first sexual love with.”

She brought her glass to her mouth and took several quick gulps, as though the liquid would erase the gnawing in her belly and the ladder of images in her mind. Jack watched her with amusement and concern. Like any person not involved in the emotional crisis which is rending another, he could be objective. But he was experienced enough to understand that at such moments objectivity can be little more than the most sophisticated rationalization for insensitivity. He decided not to try to argue the details of the situation, but to go to the heart of what he considered the psychological reality.

“Maggie,” he said softly.

She did not respond. He repeated her name.

“Maggie,” he called.

She looked up.

He walked over to her, knelt down in front of her, took the glass and cigarette from her hands, put the objects down, and then cupped her hands in his. On the edge of tears, she did not want to relate to him directly, but he was gently insistent.

“Look,” he said in a low voice. “Pretend it’s next week.”

She shook her head in exasperation, but he forced her to pay attention by squeezing her hands more tightly.

“Roll the film forward,” he told her. “You can tell what you’ll be doing, you have the whole changeover to direct. Whatever goes on inside you, outside you’ll be doing your job. You’ll be meeting people, having conferences, going to long lunch hours. You’ll stay up late scheming, thinking about how you will run things. And all of this will fade into the background.”

“It won’t,” she protested. “Not that easy.”

“Oh, I’m not saying you’ll forget. But you’ll be distracted. It may not even occur to you to think about it during some stray moment. And just then, you look up from your desk, and there she is! She has had her little trip with Manuel, and they have discovered that it was only a physical thing between them, and he has decided to return to Puerto Rico, and she asks, in the sweetest voice, ‘Do I still have a job here?’”

Margaret was looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. She knew she was being gently teased, and yet there was something so plausible in what he said that she couldn’t help but accept it. As with all fairy tales, his fantasy provided a reality that was more accurate than any actuality. Jack saw the effect of his words and he smiled at her.

“And then,” he concluded, “you rush to her and hold her in your arms and kiss her and she becomes your private secretary and your lover and you move in together and create a great pornographic kingdom and, of course, live happily ever after.”

Fighting her unwillingness to be taken out of her mood, Margaret tried bravely to supplant her dire scenario with the one Jack was providing for her. “Do you really think it will be like that?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied. “I mean, if this were a novel, how else would it end?”

She leaned forward and put her face against his. “I guess that’s why I came here,” she said. “You can always get me out of a bad trip one way or another.”

“The only thing that astonishes me,” he said, “is that you should get so torn up over that slip of a girl.”

But that was the wrong thing to say, for no sooner was the last word out of his mouth than large tears rolled down Margaret’s cheeks. She was as surprised by them as he was. Her mouth trembled as she attempted to smile through them, and her lips curved up and then down, making her face a tragicomic mask.

“Oh Jack,” she confessed, her voice keening like Stan Laurel’s when he realized he’d committed some terrible blunder, “I think I really love her.”

Jack threw up his hands and got to his feet. His attitude shifted from one of projected sympathy to one of exasperation. He had known Margaret too long and seen her in too many tough situations to accept what he now judged to be softheadedness.

“Oh please, Maggie,” he said as he walked to the sink to fix himself another drink, “not that word, not from you, anything but that god-awful word.”

“You have a napkin?” she asked.

He gave her a paper towel and she dried her eyes and blew her nose. A spasm of pain went through her as another blinding photograph exploded in her mind. It had Joan staring up into Manuel’s face as he fucked her slowly and deliciously, her eyes filled with rapture, and her voice saying, “Oh darling, I never knew it could be like this.”

“What’s happening?” Jack asked.

“My fantasies are not only painful, but the dialogue is trite.” And for the first time in several days, she was treated to the priceless luxury of being able to laugh at herself.

“Thank you again, Jack,” she said.

“Want to get married?” he asked.

“Do you really think she’ll come back?” Margaret insisted.

“Well,” he began, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down on the couch opposite where Margaret sat, “they have no money, I’ll bet on that; and almost nothing in common. I doubt that he can move in with her and keep his pride, and I don’t see her living in a cold-water flat in the ghetto. Yeah, the chances are very good she’ll be back.”

“It might be a few weeks,” she said, “or a month. Or even a year before they burn themselves out.” She passed her hand over her forehead. “My God,” she went on, “listen to me. ‘Burn themselves out.’ And if I stop for just an instant to picture them making love, it’s like knives in my belly.”

“A year’s a long time,” he told her, “so’s a month. How long can you sustain this level of jealousy? Probably not more than a few days.”

She tightened her lips. “That’s what rubs the salt in the wound,” she said. “Knowing that it will pass, as quickly as it came. Knowing that it’s a momentary storm. And wondering whether or not I’m still human, or whether I’ve become a machine like Lou, like everyone else who works in this cement city. I thought I was through with jealousy, had outgrown it. And now I realize I’ve just been suppressing it by closing myself off to really wanting someone else. It’s been so long since I’ve been vulnerable, since someone could hurt me. And now that I’m having just a touch of it, I remember that it’s actually the only thing in life that isn’t some kind of unreality.” She looked at him searchingly. “What is it, Jack? What have we become?”

“We’re just the incidental punctuation marks of our epoch,” he said. “Our little dramas have no more sense or import than the obscure thoughts of a blind fish in an underground lake. These emotional jags are the same as sexual jags, on a different level of experience. Nothing but a kind of drug to rouse us from our stupor from time to time.”

“And there is no love?” she asked. “These past three days, what have I been feeling?”

“Maybe there is love. Maybe you have been feeling love. And what of it? The person who aroused this feeling is now having a cock stuffed up her anal orifice. And if she weren’t, she would be having your tongue slipped into her genital orifice. And just last week I took her to an orgy where she was having just about everything piled into all her orifices. And that’s what has you bugged. What’s the good of love if it remains the enemy of sex? From what I understand about that much-misused notion, love means that you care only for the well-being of the loved one. So. Joan’s all right. That means you relax and let her have her experience. And you just take care of business. Because you’re too old and too wise to be playing children’s games.”

His words and the tone in which they were delivered were like a cold compress on her neck. Margaret sobered rapidly.

“The only real sin I know is thinking that one’s feelings, tender or violent, have to do with anything but oneself. I am not saying you should or shouldn’t feel love. All I am telling you is not to think that your feeling is in any way involved with Joan. Because if she or anyone else tried to do to you what she and Manuel are now probably doing with each other, you’d give them the bum’s rush in a minute. Let her learn from what she does with him, and when she has acquired a touch more maturity, you’ll still be here, and if you have done your job, you’ll be in a position where you can have her if you want her.”

Jack stood up and walked over to the window to look down on the flow of traffic on Twenty-third Street. He stretched and rubbed his eyes with both his hands. He seemed suddenly weary.

“Hell,” he said, “you know all this.”

“I know all this,” she told him, her voice warm, “but I needed to have you remind me. I’ve been on a bender for a few days.”