easily be true as not. Still, he added, “She’s quite nice, you know.”
His friend’s laughter had a lewd edge to it. “Right-o, Jamie,” he said as he thumped James on the back. “Anyone with eyes could bloody well see you think she’s nice.”
James threw Ted an exasperated look, then sighed and gave up.
There was nothing wrong with Lamott, he told himself. His friend thought as did most of his peers—as James himself had three years ago. He saw anyone who wasn’t male, English, and upper class as either a misguided child or an exploitable object.
James asked, “What do you know about this fellow Levanthal?” He nodded in the man’s direction. “What’s his interest in Mrs. Wild?”
“What do you think his interest is in her? Same as yours.” Teddy laughed. “Same as mine, as a matter of fact.”
James felt a jolt of resentment this time that went beyond exasperation, surprisingly sharp. He hid it in the bottom of his glass, swilling the last of the champagne before he asked, “Is he successful, you think?”
Teddy snorted. “As I said before, rumor has itthat no one is successful anymore. She does as she pleases.” He laughed crudely. “So long as she doesn’t please to attend gatherings where the Prince of Wales is expected at any moment. Impolitic to embarrass our future monarch.”
James dropped the subject altogether. It was becoming too difficult to keep his face impassive and say nothing. Teddy soon rambled forward into other subjects.
The orchestra started up again, the opening, sedately misleading strains of “The Beautiful Blue Danube.” The same waltz that had put Coco Wild into his arms, the two of them spinning dizzily across the dance floor by the end. He remembered holding her. How light and solid and strangely right she had felt. How easily she moved, how easily they moved together.
Romantic blather, he told himself.
Yet her departure stayed with him. He kept seeing again in his mind her disappearing into the rain, her small bounce up as she climbed into the cab, the rainy shimmers of spray from the wheels just before the dark swallowed her up.
Likewise, he couldn’t shake the blankness he’d felt immediately after she’d gone—like the empty street itself. Cold, wet, dark.
For the rest of the evening, he managed to smile and talk, even to dance two or three times. He socialized, yet he felt remote. Alone. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the attention. (The Prince arrived and thumped him on the back. James was barely alone, in fact, for a moment.) But the notice and high regard, as fine as it was, did nothing for his strange mood. Tonight’s pats and congratulationsfrom these people—these strangers he used to call countrymen—were like the lights of passing coaches, illuminating his aloneness in a way that surprised him. Like the sight of rain, silver slashes, that materialized in bursts out of the dark of his soul.
That night, James dreamed of Africa, of damp jungles curtained in darkness, lush, clicking, pulsing with life. Of ancient rivers. The names themselves mysterious, eternal. The Zambezi. The Nile. Of dark-skinned women painted with vegetable dyes, women who wore no tops, their breasts exposed. Dancing breasts. Smiling women. Females who cheerfully stroked him, pressing their hands, their bodies along his penis, till he—with only the greatest trepidation—let go of his English ways and followed instincts he hadn’t known that he possessed.
Chapter 5
Whether by means of a thorny forest or a wall of fire, a primary concern in all versions of the Sleeping Beauty legend seems to be to protect the sleeping princess from the mischief of cowards—though neither thorns nor fire does her much good when it comes to the mischief of a brave man: In all versions, other than that of the Brothers Grimm, the prince takes considerable more advantage of her sleep-enchanted state than that of a mere kiss .
From the Preface to The Sleeping Beauty
DuJauc
His friend’s laughter had a lewd edge to it. “Right-o, Jamie,” he said as he thumped James on the back. “Anyone with eyes could bloody well see you think she’s nice.”
James threw Ted an exasperated look, then sighed and gave up.
There was nothing wrong with Lamott, he told himself. His friend thought as did most of his peers—as James himself had three years ago. He saw anyone who wasn’t male, English, and upper class as either a misguided child or an exploitable object.
James asked, “What do you know about this fellow Levanthal?” He nodded in the man’s direction. “What’s his interest in Mrs. Wild?”
“What do you think his interest is in her? Same as yours.” Teddy laughed. “Same as mine, as a matter of fact.”
James felt a jolt of resentment this time that went beyond exasperation, surprisingly sharp. He hid it in the bottom of his glass, swilling the last of the champagne before he asked, “Is he successful, you think?”
Teddy snorted. “As I said before, rumor has itthat no one is successful anymore. She does as she pleases.” He laughed crudely. “So long as she doesn’t please to attend gatherings where the Prince of Wales is expected at any moment. Impolitic to embarrass our future monarch.”
James dropped the subject altogether. It was becoming too difficult to keep his face impassive and say nothing. Teddy soon rambled forward into other subjects.
The orchestra started up again, the opening, sedately misleading strains of “The Beautiful Blue Danube.” The same waltz that had put Coco Wild into his arms, the two of them spinning dizzily across the dance floor by the end. He remembered holding her. How light and solid and strangely right she had felt. How easily she moved, how easily they moved together.
Romantic blather, he told himself.
Yet her departure stayed with him. He kept seeing again in his mind her disappearing into the rain, her small bounce up as she climbed into the cab, the rainy shimmers of spray from the wheels just before the dark swallowed her up.
Likewise, he couldn’t shake the blankness he’d felt immediately after she’d gone—like the empty street itself. Cold, wet, dark.
For the rest of the evening, he managed to smile and talk, even to dance two or three times. He socialized, yet he felt remote. Alone. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the attention. (The Prince arrived and thumped him on the back. James was barely alone, in fact, for a moment.) But the notice and high regard, as fine as it was, did nothing for his strange mood. Tonight’s pats and congratulationsfrom these people—these strangers he used to call countrymen—were like the lights of passing coaches, illuminating his aloneness in a way that surprised him. Like the sight of rain, silver slashes, that materialized in bursts out of the dark of his soul.
That night, James dreamed of Africa, of damp jungles curtained in darkness, lush, clicking, pulsing with life. Of ancient rivers. The names themselves mysterious, eternal. The Zambezi. The Nile. Of dark-skinned women painted with vegetable dyes, women who wore no tops, their breasts exposed. Dancing breasts. Smiling women. Females who cheerfully stroked him, pressing their hands, their bodies along his penis, till he—with only the greatest trepidation—let go of his English ways and followed instincts he hadn’t known that he possessed.
Chapter 5
Whether by means of a thorny forest or a wall of fire, a primary concern in all versions of the Sleeping Beauty legend seems to be to protect the sleeping princess from the mischief of cowards—though neither thorns nor fire does her much good when it comes to the mischief of a brave man: In all versions, other than that of the Brothers Grimm, the prince takes considerable more advantage of her sleep-enchanted state than that of a mere kiss .
From the Preface to The Sleeping Beauty
DuJauc
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