Sexus (6 page)

He interrupted me here. “Well, I must say that you certainly seem to have it. . . . I wish I could read one of your books.”

“You will,” I said, carried away by internal combustion. “I'll send you one in a day or two.”

There was a knock at the door. As he got up to open it he explained that he had been expecting someone. He begged
me not to be disturbed, it was merely a charming friend of his.

A gorgeously beautiful woman stood in the doorway. I rose to greet her. She looked Italian. Possibly the countess he had spoken of earlier.

“Sylvia,” he said, “it's too bad you didn't come a little sooner. I've just been listening to the most wonderful stories. This young man is a writer. I want you to know him.”

She came close and put out her two hands for me to grasp. “I am sure you must be a very good writer,” she said. “You have suffered, I can see that.”

“He's had the most extraordinary life, Sylvia. I feel as though I haven't even begun to live. And what do you suppose he's doing for a living?”

She turned to me as if to say that she preferred to hear it from my own lips. I was confused. I had not been prepared to meet such a stunning creature, so full of assurance, so poised, and so thoroughly natural. I wanted to get up and place my hands on her hips, hold her thus and say something very simple, very honest, as one human being to another. Her eyes were velvety and moist; dark, round eyes that glistened with sympathy and warmth. Could she be in love with this man who was so much older? From what city did she come and out of what world? To say even two words to her I felt that I had to have some clue. A mistake would be fatal.

She seemed to divine my dilemma. “Won't someone offer me a drink?” she asked, looking first at him and then at me. “Port, I think,” she added, addressing herself to me.

“But you never take anything!” said my host. And he rose to help me. The three of us were standing close together, Sylvia with empty glass upraised. “I am very glad things have turned out this way,” he said. “I couldn't have brought together two people more opposite in every way than you two. I am sure you will understand one another.”

My head was spinning as she raised the glass to her lips. I knew that this was the preliminary to some strange adventure. I had a strong intuition that he would presently find some excuse to leave us alone for a while and that without
a word being said, she would pass into my arms. I felt too that I would never see either of them again.

In fact, it happened precisely as I had imagined. In less than five minutes from the time she arrived my host announced that he had a very important errand to run and begged us to excuse him for a little while. He had hardly closed the door when she came over to me and sat herself in my lap, saying as she did so—“He will not be back tonight. Now we may talk.” I was more frightened than startled by these words. All sorts of ideas flashed through my mind. I was even more taken aback when she added after a pause—“And what about me, am I just a pretty woman, perhaps his mistress? What do you think my life is like?”

“I think you're a very dangerous person,” I answered spontaneously and with truthfulness. “I wouldn't be surprised if you were a famous spy.”

“You have strong intuitions,” she said. “No, I am not a spy, but. . .”

“Well, if you were you wouldn't tell me, I know that. I really don't want to know about your life. Do you know what I'm wondering? I'm wondering what you want of me. I feel as if I were in a trap.”

“That's unkind of you. Now you're imagining things. If we did want something of you we would have to know you better, wouldn't we?” A moment's silence, then suddenly: “Are you sure you want to be nothing more than a writer?”

“What do you mean?” I retorted quickly.

“Just that. I know you
are
a writer . . . but you could also be other things. You're the sort of person who could do anything he chose to do, isn't that so?”

“I'm afraid it's just the contrary,” I replied. “So far everything I've tackled has ended disastrously. I'm not even sure that I'm a writer, at this moment.”

She rose from my lap and lit herself a cigarette. “You couldn't possibly be a failure,” she said, after a moment's hesitation in which she seemed to be collecting herself to make some important revelation. “The trouble with you,” she said slowly and deliberately, “is that you've never set yourself a task worthy of your powers. You need bigger problems,
bigger difficulties. You don't function properly until you're hard pressed. I don't know what you're doing but I'm certain that your present life is not suited to you. You were meant to lead a dangerous life; you can take greater risks than others because . . . well, you probably know it yourself . . . because you are protected.”

“Protected?
I don't understand,” I blurted out.

“Oh yes you do,” she answered quietly. “All your life you've been protected. Just think a moment. . . . Haven't you been near death several times . . . haven't you always found someone to help you, some stranger usually, just when you thought all was lost? Haven't you committed several crimes already, crimes which nobody would suspect you of? Aren't you right now in the midst of a very dangerous passion, an affair which, if you weren't born under a lucky star, might lead you to ruin? I know that you're in love. I know that you're ready to do anything in order to satisfy this passion. . . . You look at me strangely . . . you wonder how I know. I have no special gifts—except the ability to read human beings at a glance. Look, a few moments ago you were waiting eagerly for me to come to you. You knew that I would throw myself in your arms, as soon as he left. I did. But you were paralyzed—a little frightened of me, shall I say?
Why?
What could I do to you? You have no money, no power, no influence. What could you expect me to ask of you?” She paused, then added: “Shall I tell you the truth?”

I nodded helplessly.

“You were afraid that if I did ask you to do something for me you would not be able to refuse. You were perplexed because, being in love with one woman, you already felt yourself the potential victim of another. It isn't a woman you need—it is an instrument to liberate yourself. You crave a more adventurous life, you want to break your chains. Whoever the woman is you love I pity her. To you she will appear to be the stronger, but that is only because you doubt yourself.
You
are the stronger. You will always be stronger—because you can think only of yourself, of your destiny. If you were just a little stronger I would fear for you. You might make a dangerous fanatic. But that is not your fate.
You're too sane, too healthy. You love life even more than your own self. You are confused, because whomsoever or whatever you give yourself to is never enough for you—isn't that true? Nobody can hold you for long: you are always looking beyond the object of your love, looking for something you will never find. You will have to look inside yourself if you ever hope to free yourself of torment. You make friends easily, I'm sure. And yet there is no one whom you can really call your friend. You are alone. You will always be alone. You want too much, more than life can offer . . .”

“Wait a moment, please,” I interrupted. “Why have you chosen to tell me all this?”

She paused a moment, as if hesitating to answer this directly. “I suppose I am merely answering a question in my own mind,” she said. “Tonight I must make a grave decision; I leave in the morning on a long journey. When I saw you I said to myself—this may be the man who can help me. But I was wrong. I have nothing to ask of you. . . . You may put your arms around me, if you like . . . if you are not afraid of me.”

I walked over to her, clasped her tightly and kissed her. I drew my lips away and looked into her eyes, my arms still about her waist.

“What is it you see?” she said, gently disengaging herself.

I moved away from her and looked at her steadily, for several moments, before answering.
“What do I see?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. To look into your eyes is like looking into a dark mirror.”

“You're disturbed. What is it?”

“What you said about me—it frightens me. . . . So I'm no help to you, is that it?”

“You have helped, in a way,” she replied. “You always help, indirectly. You can't help radiating energy, and that is something. People lean on you, but you don't know why. You even hate them for it, though you act as though you were kind and truly sympathetic. When I came here tonight I was a bit shaken inwardly; I had lost that confidence I usually have. I looked at you and I saw . . . what do you think?”

“A man flushed with his own ego, I suppose.”

“I saw an animal! I felt that you would devour me, if I were to let myself go. And for a moment or two I felt that I wanted to let myself go. You wanted to take me, throw me down on the carpet. To have me that way wouldn't have satisfied you, would it? You saw in me something you had never observed in another woman. You saw the mask which is your own.” She paused for just a second. “You don't dare to reveal your real self, nor do I. That much we have in common. I live dangerously, not because I am strong, but because I know how to make use of others' strength. I am afraid not to do the things I do because if I were to stop I would collapse. You read nothing in my eyes because there is nothing to read. I have nothing to give you, as I told you a moment ago. You look only for your prey, your victims on whom you fatten. Yes, to be a writer is probably the best thing for you. If you were to act out your thoughts you would probably become a criminal. You have always the choice of going two ways. It is not the moral sense which deters you from going the wrong way—it is your instinct to do only that which will serve you best in the long run. You don't know why it is you abandon your brilliant projects; you think it is weakness, fear, dubiety, but it isn't. You have the instincts of the animal; you make everything subservient to the desire to live. You would not hesitate to take me against my will, even if you knew you were in a trap. The man trap you are not afraid of, but the other trap, the trap which would set your feet in the wrong direction, that you are wary of. And you are right.” Again she paused. “Yes, you did me a great service. If I had not met you tonight I would have given in to my doubts.”

“Then you
are
about to do something dangerous,” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows what is dangerous? To doubt, that is dangerous. You will have a much more dangerous time of it than I. And you will cause a lot of harm to others in defending yourself from your own fears and doubts. You are not even sure at this moment that you will go back to the woman you love. I have poisoned your mind. You would drop her like that if you were sure that you could do what you wanted without her aid. But you will need her
and you will call it love. You will always fall back on that excuse when you are sucking the life out of a woman.”

“That is where you are wrong,” I interrupted with some heat. “It's me who gets sucked dry, not the woman.”

“That is your way of deceiving yourself. Because the woman can never give you what you want you make yourself out to be a martyr. A woman wants love and you're incapable of giving love. If you were a lower type of man you would be a monster; but you will convert your frustration into something useful. Yes, by all means go on writing. Art can transform the hideous into the beautiful. Better a monstrous book than a monstrous life. Art is painful, tedious, softening. If you don't die in the attempt, your work may transform you into a sociable, charitable human being. You are big enough not to be satisfied with mere fame, I can see that. Probably, when you have lived enough, you will discover that there is something beyond what you now call life. You may yet live to live for others. That depends on what use you make of your intelligence.” (We looked at one another keenly.) “For you are not as intelligent as you think you are. That is your weakness, your overweening intellectual pride. If you rely exclusively on that you defeat yourself. You have all the feminine virtues, but you are ashamed to acknowledge them to yourself. You think because you are strong sexually that you are a virile man, but you are more of a woman than a man. Your sexual virility is the only sign of a greater power which you haven't begun to use. Don't try to prove yourself a man by exploiting your powers of seduction. Women are not fooled by that sort of strength and charm. Women, even when they are subjugated mentally, are always masters of the situation. A woman may be enslaved, sexually, and yet dominate the man. You will have a harder time than other men because to dominate another doesn't interest you. You will always be trying to dominate yourself; the woman you love will only be an instrument for you to practice on . . .”

Here she broke off. I saw that she expected me to go.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, as I was making my adieu, “the gentleman asked me to give you this”—and she handed me a sealed envelope. “He's probably explained why he
couldn't make a better excuse for leaving so mysteriously.” I took the envelope and shook hands with her. If she had suddenly said: “Run! run for your life!” I would have done so without question. I was completely mystified, knowing neither why I had come nor why I was leaving. I had been whisked into it on the crest of a strange elation the origin of which now seemed remote and of little concern to me. From noon to midnight I had gone full circle.

I opened the envelope in the street. It contained a twenty-dollar bill enclosed in a sheet of paper on which was written “Good Luck to you!” I was not altogether surprised. I had expected something of the sort when first I laid eyes on him. . . .

A few days after this episode I wrote a story called “Free Fantasia” which I brought to Ulric and read aloud to him. It was written blindly, without thought of beginning or end. I had just one fixed image in mind throughout, and that was of swinging Japanese lanterns. The
piéce de résistance
was a kick in the slats which I gave the heroine in the act of submission. This gesture, which was aimed at Mara, was more of a surprise to me than it could possibly be to the reader. Ulric thought the writing quite remarkable but confessed he couldn't make head nor tail of it. He wanted me to show it to Irene, whom he was expecting later. She had a perverted streak in her, he said. She had returned to the studio with him late that night, after the others had gone, and she had almost bled him to death. Three times ought to be enough to satisfy any woman, he thought, but this one could keep it up all night. “The bitch can't stop coming,” he said. “No wonder her husband's a paralytic—she must have twisted the cock off him.”