for this moment of boyhood among his ways imperialized and set (he was 33), his pre-Austerity, in which Scorpia figured as his Last Fling-though herself too young to know that, to know, like Pirate, what the lyrics to "Dancing in the Dark" are really about…
He will be scrupulous about never telling her. But there are times when it's agony not to go to her feet, knowing she won't leave Clive, crying you 're my last chance… if it can't be you then there's no more time… Doesn't he wish, against all hope, that he could let the poor, Western-man's timetable go… but how does a man… where does he even begin, at age 33… "But that's just it" she'd have laughed, not
so much annoyed (she would have laughed) as tickled by the unreality of the problem-herself too lost at the manic edge of him, always at engage, so taking, cleaving her (for more than when jerking off into an Army flannel in the Persian Gulf was some collar of love's nettles now at him, at his cock), too unappeasable for her not to give in to the insanity of, but too insane really even to think of as any betrayal of Clive…
Convenient as hell for her, anyway. Roger Mexico is now going through much the same thing with Jessica, the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver. Pirate has looked on but never talked about it to Mexico. Yes he is waiting, to see if it will end for Roger the same way, part of him, never so cheery as at the spectacle of another's misfortune, rooting for Beaver and all that he, like Clive, stands for, to win out. But another part-an alternate self?-one that he mustn't be quick to call "decent"-does seem to want for Roger what Pirate himself lost…
"You are a pirate," she'd whispered the last day-neither of them knew it was the last day-"you've come and taken me off on your pirate ship. A girl of good family and the usual repressions. You've raped me. And I'm the Red Bitch of the High Seas…" A lovely game. Pirate wished she'd thought it up sooner. Fucking the last (already the last) day's light away down afternoon to dusk, hours of fucking, too in love with it to uncouple, they noticed how the borrowed room rocked gentry, the ceiling obligingly came down a foot, lamps swayed from their fittings, some fraction of the Thameside traffic provided salty cries over the water, and nautical bells…
But back over their lowering sky-sea behind, Government hounds were on the track-drawing closer, the cutters are coming, the cutters and the sleek hermaphrodites of the law, agents who, being old hands, will settle for her safe return, won't insist on his execution or capture. Their logic is sound: give him a bad enough wound and he'll come round, round to the ways of this hard-boiled old egg of world and timetables, cycling night to compromise night…
He left her at Waterloo Station. A gala crowd was there, to see Fred Roper's Company of Wonder Midgets off to an imperial fair in Johannesburg, South Africa. Midgets in their dark winter clothes, exquisite little frocks and nip-waisted overcoats, were running all over the station, gobbling their bonvoyage chocolates and lining up for news photos. Scorpia's talc-white face, through the last window, across the last gate, was a blow to his heart. A flurry of giggles and best wishes arose from the Wonder Midgets and their admirers. Well, thought Pirate, guess I'll go back in the Army…
D D D D D D D
They're bound eastward now, Roger peering over the wheel, hunched Dracula-style inside his Burberry, Jessica with bright millions of droplets still clinging in soft net to her shoulders and sleeves of drab wool. They want to be together, in bed, at rest, in love, and instead it's eastward tonight and south of the Thames to rendezvous with a certain high-class vivisectionist before the clock of St. Felix chimes one. And when the mice run down, who knows tonight but what they've run for good?
Her face against the breath-fogged window has become another dimness, another light-trick of the winter.
He will be scrupulous about never telling her. But there are times when it's agony not to go to her feet, knowing she won't leave Clive, crying you 're my last chance… if it can't be you then there's no more time… Doesn't he wish, against all hope, that he could let the poor, Western-man's timetable go… but how does a man… where does he even begin, at age 33… "But that's just it" she'd have laughed, not
so much annoyed (she would have laughed) as tickled by the unreality of the problem-herself too lost at the manic edge of him, always at engage, so taking, cleaving her (for more than when jerking off into an Army flannel in the Persian Gulf was some collar of love's nettles now at him, at his cock), too unappeasable for her not to give in to the insanity of, but too insane really even to think of as any betrayal of Clive…
Convenient as hell for her, anyway. Roger Mexico is now going through much the same thing with Jessica, the Other Chap in this case being known as Beaver. Pirate has looked on but never talked about it to Mexico. Yes he is waiting, to see if it will end for Roger the same way, part of him, never so cheery as at the spectacle of another's misfortune, rooting for Beaver and all that he, like Clive, stands for, to win out. But another part-an alternate self?-one that he mustn't be quick to call "decent"-does seem to want for Roger what Pirate himself lost…
"You are a pirate," she'd whispered the last day-neither of them knew it was the last day-"you've come and taken me off on your pirate ship. A girl of good family and the usual repressions. You've raped me. And I'm the Red Bitch of the High Seas…" A lovely game. Pirate wished she'd thought it up sooner. Fucking the last (already the last) day's light away down afternoon to dusk, hours of fucking, too in love with it to uncouple, they noticed how the borrowed room rocked gentry, the ceiling obligingly came down a foot, lamps swayed from their fittings, some fraction of the Thameside traffic provided salty cries over the water, and nautical bells…
But back over their lowering sky-sea behind, Government hounds were on the track-drawing closer, the cutters are coming, the cutters and the sleek hermaphrodites of the law, agents who, being old hands, will settle for her safe return, won't insist on his execution or capture. Their logic is sound: give him a bad enough wound and he'll come round, round to the ways of this hard-boiled old egg of world and timetables, cycling night to compromise night…
He left her at Waterloo Station. A gala crowd was there, to see Fred Roper's Company of Wonder Midgets off to an imperial fair in Johannesburg, South Africa. Midgets in their dark winter clothes, exquisite little frocks and nip-waisted overcoats, were running all over the station, gobbling their bonvoyage chocolates and lining up for news photos. Scorpia's talc-white face, through the last window, across the last gate, was a blow to his heart. A flurry of giggles and best wishes arose from the Wonder Midgets and their admirers. Well, thought Pirate, guess I'll go back in the Army…
D D D D D D D
They're bound eastward now, Roger peering over the wheel, hunched Dracula-style inside his Burberry, Jessica with bright millions of droplets still clinging in soft net to her shoulders and sleeves of drab wool. They want to be together, in bed, at rest, in love, and instead it's eastward tonight and south of the Thames to rendezvous with a certain high-class vivisectionist before the clock of St. Felix chimes one. And when the mice run down, who knows tonight but what they've run for good?
Her face against the breath-fogged window has become another dimness, another light-trick of the winter.
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