St Simon’s, Dan was feeling pleasantly tingly.
Dave 2 had been compelled to retire early for the evening. It was the first night since they had ‘come into recovery’ that he had neglected Dan and Carol. Dan had wondered whether this wasn’t the beginning of the end of Dave 2’s concern for him, but at the very end of the evening Dave 2 had come across to Dan and given him a really big hug. Dan went home with a new glow. Dave 2’s hug had somehow unlocked a wave of sensual memories for Dan. Memories of entwinings, limb stretchings, sighs and lubricious sounds. Dan’s sexualrecall was so pathetically confused that it was difficult for him to judge whether these were genuine memories, or merely memories of witnessing actors, working at sex for the requisite Equity minimum fee. If you wanted to be clever and allusive you might say that Dave 2’s hug was Dan’s madeleine.
‘That’s your style, isn’t it. Being clever and allusive, but what does this really amount to save for trying to get one over on good, ordinary, straightforward people? Trying to get one over with your slimy little mind and insinuating your snaky little cock into them while they’re not looking! Pushing it up their trouser legs while they’re strap-dangling on the train! Or while talking to them at a party flipping it up ’n’ under their skirts! You’re an incubus, that’s what you are; a night creeper, a ravager, a rapist. Yes, that’s right—a rapist! …You fuck! You fucking fuck…Oh gaa!’
The hate had been injected into the don’s voice like dye into water. The aftertone hung there in the dusty compartment, puffing into dense billows of aggression. I sat stunned. Too stunned to pull myself away from his protuberant gaze and twitching lip, too stunned to say anything.
It was clear that the don was changing before my eyes, and along with this change came an alteration in the nature of his tale. It was becoming clear to me that the tale itself had no autonomous existence, that it was simply a direct expression of
the don’s nature. And if any further confirmation of this hypothesis were required it was amply supplied within seconds, when the don, instead of leaping from his seat and throttling me, or metamorphosing into someone else altogether, resumed the story in the same rapid but even tones with which he had begun. Insulting me directly was no fun for him—or so I thought. He wanted me to suffer alongside Dan and Carol.
The rest of the evening Dan spent sacked down in the living-room watching a repeat of
Doogie Howser MD
. He ate some of the new poly-flavoured crisps: wiener schnitzel with red cabbage. Upstairs Carol did the same. He came to his twin bed at about eleven-thirty. He kissed Carol on the cheek and said ‘night love’. They simultaneously snuggled down and clicked off their respective bedside lamps; just like synchronised sleepers.
But sometime during the night they lost this unconscious harmony. Carol, who had taken to sleeping with legs slightly apart, lying three-quarters on one side, felt a deft hand slide across the top of her thigh, towards
it
. Dan’s lethargic voice, fat-bellied with desire, whispered in her ear: ‘Is it all right if I climb on board?’
6
How One Becomes What One Is
CAROL STIFFENED. No, not quite right, bit of an unfortunate choice of words that, it would be better to say that she froze. Indeed she went so crisply hard that she might have been freeze-dried. What to do? Dan’s hand, was it headed towards Carol? Or towards
it
?
It would have been entirely in character for Carol to shrug Dan off at this point. She knew the balloon of his erection to be so diffident that it was easily punctured. There was nothing whatsoever compelling about Dan’s lust. Maybe she would have given him some explanation, but it would have been just as typical for her to simply turn aside. You’d like that, wooden d’jew? You’d like Carol to turn aside. I don’t think you really want to confront
Dave 2 had been compelled to retire early for the evening. It was the first night since they had ‘come into recovery’ that he had neglected Dan and Carol. Dan had wondered whether this wasn’t the beginning of the end of Dave 2’s concern for him, but at the very end of the evening Dave 2 had come across to Dan and given him a really big hug. Dan went home with a new glow. Dave 2’s hug had somehow unlocked a wave of sensual memories for Dan. Memories of entwinings, limb stretchings, sighs and lubricious sounds. Dan’s sexualrecall was so pathetically confused that it was difficult for him to judge whether these were genuine memories, or merely memories of witnessing actors, working at sex for the requisite Equity minimum fee. If you wanted to be clever and allusive you might say that Dave 2’s hug was Dan’s madeleine.
‘That’s your style, isn’t it. Being clever and allusive, but what does this really amount to save for trying to get one over on good, ordinary, straightforward people? Trying to get one over with your slimy little mind and insinuating your snaky little cock into them while they’re not looking! Pushing it up their trouser legs while they’re strap-dangling on the train! Or while talking to them at a party flipping it up ’n’ under their skirts! You’re an incubus, that’s what you are; a night creeper, a ravager, a rapist. Yes, that’s right—a rapist! …You fuck! You fucking fuck…Oh gaa!’
The hate had been injected into the don’s voice like dye into water. The aftertone hung there in the dusty compartment, puffing into dense billows of aggression. I sat stunned. Too stunned to pull myself away from his protuberant gaze and twitching lip, too stunned to say anything.
It was clear that the don was changing before my eyes, and along with this change came an alteration in the nature of his tale. It was becoming clear to me that the tale itself had no autonomous existence, that it was simply a direct expression of
the don’s nature. And if any further confirmation of this hypothesis were required it was amply supplied within seconds, when the don, instead of leaping from his seat and throttling me, or metamorphosing into someone else altogether, resumed the story in the same rapid but even tones with which he had begun. Insulting me directly was no fun for him—or so I thought. He wanted me to suffer alongside Dan and Carol.
The rest of the evening Dan spent sacked down in the living-room watching a repeat of
Doogie Howser MD
. He ate some of the new poly-flavoured crisps: wiener schnitzel with red cabbage. Upstairs Carol did the same. He came to his twin bed at about eleven-thirty. He kissed Carol on the cheek and said ‘night love’. They simultaneously snuggled down and clicked off their respective bedside lamps; just like synchronised sleepers.
But sometime during the night they lost this unconscious harmony. Carol, who had taken to sleeping with legs slightly apart, lying three-quarters on one side, felt a deft hand slide across the top of her thigh, towards
it
. Dan’s lethargic voice, fat-bellied with desire, whispered in her ear: ‘Is it all right if I climb on board?’
6
How One Becomes What One Is
CAROL STIFFENED. No, not quite right, bit of an unfortunate choice of words that, it would be better to say that she froze. Indeed she went so crisply hard that she might have been freeze-dried. What to do? Dan’s hand, was it headed towards Carol? Or towards
it
?
It would have been entirely in character for Carol to shrug Dan off at this point. She knew the balloon of his erection to be so diffident that it was easily punctured. There was nothing whatsoever compelling about Dan’s lust. Maybe she would have given him some explanation, but it would have been just as typical for her to simply turn aside. You’d like that, wooden d’jew? You’d like Carol to turn aside. I don’t think you really want to confront
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