Invisible Man (62 page)

Now it was late and as I came into the room with another round of drinks she had let down her hair and was beckoning to me with a gold hairpin in her teeth, saying, “Come to mamma, beautiful,” from where she sat on the bed.

“Your drink, madame,” I said handing her a glass and hoping the fresh drink would discourage any new ideas.

“Come on, dear,” she said coyly. “I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?” I said.

“I have to whisper it, beautiful.”

I sat and her lips came close to my ear. And suddenly she had drained the starch out of me. I pulled away. There was something almost prim about the way she sat there, and yet she had just made a modest proposal that I join her in a very revolting ritual.

“What was that!” I said, and she repeated it. Had life suddenly become a crazy Thurber cartoon?

“Please, you’ll do that for me, won’t you, beautiful?”

“You really mean it?”

“Yes,” she said, “yes!”

There was a pristine incorruptibility about her face now that upset me all the more, for she was neither kidding nor trying to insult me; and I could not tell if it were horror speaking to me out of innocence, or innocence emerging unscathed from the obscene scheme of the evening. I only knew that the whole affair was a mistake. She had no information and I decided to get her out of the apartment before I had to deal definitely with either the horror or the innocence, while I could still deal with it as a joke. What would Rinehart do about
this
, I thought, and knowing, determined not to let her provoke me to violence.

“But, Sybil, you can see I’m not like that. You make me feel a tender, protective passion— Look, it’s like an oven in here, why don’t we get dressed and go for a walk in Central Park?”

“But I need it,” she said, uncrossing her thighs and sitting up eagerly. “You can do it, it’ll be easy for
you
, beautiful. Threaten to kill me if I don’t give in. You know, talk rough to me, beautiful. A friend of mine said the fellow said, ‘Drop your drawers’ … and—”

“He said what!” I said.

“He really did,” she said.

I looked at her. She was blushing, her cheeks, even her freckled bosom, were bright red.

“Go on,” I said, as she lay back again. “Then what happened?”

“Well … he called her a filthy name,” she said, hesitating coyly. She was a leathery old girl with chestnut hair of fine natural wave which was now fanned out over the pillow. She was blushing quite deeply. Was this meant to excite me, or was it an unconscious expression of revulsion?

“A really filthy name,” she said. “Oh, he was a brute, huge, with white teeth, what they call a ‘buck.’ And he said, ‘Bitch, drop your drawers,’ and then he did it. She’s such a lovely girl, too, really delicate with a complexion like strawberries and cream. You can’t imagine
anyone
calling her a name like that.”

She sat up now, her elbows denting the pillow as she looked into my face.

“But what happened, did they catch him?” I said.

“Oh, of course not, beautiful, she only told two of us girls. She couldn’t afford to let her husband hear of it. He … well, it’s too long a story.”

“It’s terrible,” I said. “Don’t you think we should go … ?”

“Isn’t it, though? She was in a state for months …” Her expression flickered, became indeterminate.

“What is it?” I said, afraid she might cry.

“Oh, I was just wondering how she
really
felt. I really do.” Suddenly she looked at me mysteriously. “Can I trust you with a deep secret?”

I sat up. “Don’t tell me that it was you.”

She smiled, “Oh, no, that was a dear friend of mine. But do you know what, beautiful,” she said leaning forward confidentially, “I think I’m a nymphomaniac.”

“You? Noooo!”

“Uh huh. Sometimes I have such thoughts and dreams. I never give into them though, but I really think I am. A woman like me has to develop an iron discipline.”

I laughed inwardly. She would soon be a biddy, stout, with a little double chin and a three-ply girdle. A thin gold chain showed around a thickening ankle. And yet I was becoming aware of something warmly, infuriatingly feminine about her. I reached out, stroking her hand. “Why do you have such ideas about yourself?” I said, seeing her raise up and pluck at the corner of the pillow, drawing out a speckled feather and stripping the down from its shaft.

“Repression,” she said with great sophistication. “Men have repressed us too much. We’re expected to pass up too many human things. But do you know another secret?”

I bowed my head.

“You don’t mind my going on, do you, beautiful?”

“No, Sybil.”

“Well, ever since I first heard about it, even when I was a very little girl, I’ve wanted it to happen to me.”

“You mean what happened to your friend?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good Lord, Sybil, did you ever tell that to anyone else?”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t’ve dared. Are you shocked?”

“Some. But Sybil, why do you tell me?”

“Oh, I know that I can trust you. I just knew you’d understand; you’re not like other men. We’re kind of alike.”

She was smiling now and reached out and pushed me gently, and I thought, here it goes again.

“Lie back and let me look at you against that white sheet. You’re beautiful, I’ve always thought so. Like warm ebony against pure snow—see what you do, you make me talk poetry. ‘Warm ebony against pure snow,’ isn’t that poetic?”

“I’m the sensitive type, you mustn’t make fun of me.”

“But really you are, and I feel so free with you. You’ve no idea.”

I looked at the red imprint left by the straps of her bra, thinking, Who’s taking revenge on whom? But why be surprised, when that’s what they hear all their lives. When it’s made into a great power and they’re taught to worship all types of power? With all the warnings against it, some are bound to want to try it out for themselves. The conquerors conquered. Maybe a great number secretly want it; maybe that’s why they scream when it’s farthest from possibility—

“That’s it,” she said tightly. “Look at me like that; just like you want to tear me apart. I love for you to look at me like that!”

I laughed and touched her chin. She had me on the ropes; I felt punch drunk, I couldn’t deliver and I couldn’t be angry either. I thought of lecturing her on the respect due one’s bed-mate in our society, but I no longer deluded myself that I either knew the society or where I fitted into it. Besides, I thought, she thinks you’re an entertainer. That’s something else they’re taught.

I raised my glass and she joined me in a drink, moving close.

“You will, won’t you, beautiful?” she said, her lips, raw-looking now without makeup, pouting babyishly. So why not entertain her, be a gentleman, or whatever it is she thinks you are— What does she think you are? A domesticated rapist, obviously, an expert on the woman question. Maybe that’s what you are, house-broken and with a convenient verbal pushbutton arrangement for the ladies’ pleasure. Well, so I had set this trap for myself.

“Take this,” I said, shoving another glass into her hand. “It’ll be better after you’ve had a drink, more realistic.”

“Oh, yes, that’ll be wonderful.” She took a drink and looked up thoughtfully. “I get so tired of living the way I do, beautiful. Soon I’ll be old and nothing will’ve happened to me. Do you know what that means? George talks a lot about women’s rights, but what does he know about what a woman needs? Him with his forty minutes of brag and ten of bustle. Oh, you have no idea what you’re doing for me.”

“Nor you for me, Sybil dear,” I said, filling the glass again. At last my drinks were beginning to work.

She shook her long hair out over her shoulders and crossed her knees, watching me. Her head had begun to weave.

“Don’t drink too much, beautiful,” she said. “It always takes the pep out of George.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I rapes real good when I’m drunk.”

She looked startled. “Ooooh, then pour me another,” she said, giving herself a bounce. She was as delighted as a child, holding out her glass eagerly.

“What’s happening here,” I said, “a new birth of a nation?”

“What’d you say, beautiful?”

“Nothing, a bad joke. Forget it.”

“That’s what I like about you, beautiful. You haven’t told me a single one of those vulgar jokes. Come on, beautiful,” she said, “pour.”

I poured her another and another; in fact, I poured us both quite a few. I was far away; it wasn’t happening to me or to her and I felt a certain confused pity which I didn’t wish to feel. Then she looked at me, her eyes bright behind narrowed lids and raised up and struck me where it hurt.

“Come on, beat me, daddy—you—you big black bruiser. What’s taking you so long?” she said. “Hurry up, knock me down! Don’t you want me?”

I was annoyed enough to slap her. She lay aggressively receptive, flushed, her navel no goblet but a pit in an earth-quaking land, flexing taut and expansive. Then she said, “Come on, come on!” and I said, “Sure, sure,” looking around wildly and starting to pour the drink upon her and was stopped, my emotions locked, as I saw her lipstick lying on the table and grabbed it, saying, “Yes, yes,” as I bent to write furiously across her belly in drunken inspiration:

and paused there; trembling above her, my knees on the bed as she waited with unsteady expectancy. It was a purplish metallic shade of lipstick and as she panted with anticipation the letters stretched and quivered, up hill and down dale, and she was lit up like a luminescent sign. “Hurry, boo’ful, hurry,” she said.

I looked at her, thinking, Just wait until George sees that—if George ever gets around to seeing that. He’ll read a lecture on an aspect of the woman question he’s never thought about. She lay anonymous beneath my eyes until I saw her face, shaped by her emotion which I could not fulfill, and I thought, Poor Sybil, she picked a boy for a man’s job and nothing was as it was supposed to be. Even the black bruiser fell down on the job. She’d lost control of her liquor now and suddenly I bent and kissed her upon the lips.

“Shhhh, be quiet,” I said, “that’s no way to act when you’re being—” and she raised her lips for more and I kissed her again and calmed her and she dozed off and I decided again to end the farce. Such games were for Rinehart, not me. I stumbled out and got a damp towel and began rubbing out the evidence of my crime. It was as tenacious as sin and it took some time. Water wouldn’t do it, whiskey would have smelled and finally I had to find benzine. Fortunately she didn’t arouse until I was almost finished.

“D’ you do it, boo’ful?” she said.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but I don’t seem t’remember …”

I looked at her and wanted to laugh. She was trying to see me but her eyes wouldn’t focus and her head kept swinging to one side, yet she was making a real effort, and suddenly I felt lighthearted.

“By the way,” I said, trying to do something with her hair, “what’s your name, lady?”

“It’s Sybil,” she said indignantly, almost tearfully. “Boo’ful, you know I’m Sybil.”

“Not when I grabbed you, I didn’t.”

Her eyes widened and a smile wobbled across her face.

“That’s right, you couldn’t, could you? You never saw me before.” She was delighted, I could almost see the idea take form in her mind.

“That’s right,” I said, “I leaped straight out of the wall. I overpowered you in the empty lobby—remember? I smothered your terrified screams.”

“ ‘N’ did I put up a good fight?”

“Like a lioness defending her young …”

“But you were such a strong big brute you made me give in. I didn’t want to, did I now, boo’ful? You forced me ’gainst m’ will.”

“Sure,” I said, picking up some silken piece of clothing. “You brought out the beast in me. I overpowered you. But what could I do?”

She studied that a while and for a second her face worked again as though she would cry. But it was another smile that bloomed there.

“And wasn’t I a good nymphomaniac?” she said, watching me closely. “Really and truly?”

“You have no idea,” I said. “George had better keep an eye on you.”

She twisted herself from side to side with irritation. “Oh, nuts! That ole Georgie porgie wouldn’t know a nymphomaniac if she got right into bed with him!”

“You’re wonderful,” I said. “Tell me about George. Tell me about that great master mind of social change.”

She steadied her gaze, frowning, “Who,
Georgie?”
she said, looking at me out of one bleary eye. “Georgie’s blind ’sa mole in a hole ’n doesn’t know a thing about it. ’D you ever hear of such a thing, fifteen years! Say, what’re you laughing at, boo’ful?”

“Me,” I said, beginning to roar, “just me …”

“I’ve never seen anyone laugh like you, boo’ful. It’s wonderful!”

I was slipping her dress over her head now and her voice came muffled through the shantung cloth. Then I had it down around her hips and her flushed face wavered through the collar, her hair down in disorder again.

“Boo’ful,” she said, blowing the word, “will you do it again sometimes?”

I stepped away and looked at her. “What?”

“Please, pretty boo’ful, please,” she said with a wobbly smile.

I began to laugh. “Sure,” I said, “sure …”

“When, boo’ful, when?”

“Any time,” I said. “How about every Thursday at nine?”

“Oooooh, boo’ful,” she said, giving me an old-fashioned hug. “I’ve never seen anyone like you.”

“Are you sure?” I said.

“Really, I haven’t, boo’ful … Honor bright … believe me?”

“Sure, it’s good to be seen, but we’ve got to go now,” I said, seeing her about to sag to the bed.

She pouted. “I need a lil nightcap, boo’ful,” she said.

“You’ve had enough,” I said.

“Ah, boo’ful, jus’ one …”

“Okay, just one.”

We had another drink and I looked at her and felt the pity and self-disgust returning and was depressed.

She looked at me gravely, her head to one side.

“Boo’ful,” she said, “you know what lil ole Sybil thinks? She thinks you’re trying to get rid of her.”