But in spite of all my good efforts Agnes was getting more delirious. She was a dumb Irish Catholic and she had never heard God spoken to that way before. Suddenly, while 1 was dancing about in the rear of the bath-house she bolted for the river. I heard Francie scream – “Bring her back, she'll drown herself! Bring her back!” I started after her, the rain still coming down like pitchforks, and yelling to her to come back, but she ran on blindly as though possessed of the devil, and when she got to the water's edge she dove straight in and made for the boat. I swam after her and as we got to the side of the boat, which I was afraid she would capsize, I got hold of her round the waist with my one hand and I started to talk to her calmly and soothingly, as though I were talking to a child. “Go away from me,” she said, “you're an atheist!” Jesus, you could have knocked me over with a feather, so astonished I was to hear that. So that was it? All that hysteria because I was insulting the Lord Almighty. I felt like batting her one in the eye to bring her to her senses. But we were out over our heads and I had a fear that she would do some mad thing like pulling the boat over our heads if I didn't handle her right. So I pretended that I was terribly sorry and I said I didn't mean a word of it, that I had been scared to death, and so on and so forth, and as I talked to her gently, soothingly, I slipped my hand down from her waist and I gently stroked her ass. That was what she wanted all right. She was talking to me blubberingly about what a good Catholic she was and how she had tried not to sin, and maybe she was so wrapped up in what she was saying that she didn't know what I was doing, but just the same when I got my hand in her crotch and said all the beautiful things I could think of, about God, about love, about going to church and confessing and all that crap, she must have felt something because I had a good three fingers inside her and working them around like drunken bobbins. “Put your arms around me Agnes,” I said softly, slipping my band out and pulling her to me so that I could get my legs between hers… “There, that's the girl… take it easy now… it'll stop soon.” And still talking about the church, the confessional. God love, and the whole bloody mess I managed to get it inside her. “You're very good to me,” she said, just as though she didn't know my prick was in her, “and I'm sorry I acted like a fool.” “I know, Agnes,” I said, “it's all right… listen, grab me tighter… yeah, that's it.” “I'm afraid the boat's going to tip over,” she says, trying her best to keep her ass in position by paddling with her right hand. “Yes, let's get back to the shore,” I said, and I start to pull away from her. “Oh don't leave me,” she says, clutching me tighter. “Don't leave me, I'll drown.” Just then Francie comes running down to the water. “Hurry,” says Agnes, “hurry … I'll drown.”

Francie was a good sort, I must say. She certainly wasn't a Catholic and if she had any morals they were of the reptilian order. She was one of those girls who are born to fuck. She had no aims, no great desires, showed no jealousy, held no grievances, was constantly cheerful and not at all unintelligent. At nights when we were sitting on the porch in the dark talking to the guests she would come over and sit on my lap with nothing on underneath her dress and I would slip it into her as she laughed and talked to the others. I think she would have brazened it out before the Pope if she had been given a chance. Back in the city, when I called on her at her home, she pulled the same stunt off in front of her mother whose sight, fortunately, was growing dim. If we went dancing and she got too hot in the pants she would drag me to a telephone booth and, queer girl that she was, she'd actually talk to some one, some one like Agnes for example, while pulling off the trick. She seemed to get a special pleasure out of doing it under people's noses; she said there was more fun in it if you didn't think about it too hard. In the crowded subway coming home from the beach, say, she'd slip her dress around so that the slit was in the middle and take my hand and put it right on her cunt. If the train was tightly packed and we were safely wedged in a comer she'd take my cock out of my fly and hold it in her two hands, as though it were a bird. Sometimes she'd get playful and hang her bag on it, as though to prove that there wasn't the least danger. Another thing about her was that she didn't pretend that I was the only guy she had on the string. Whether she told me everything I don't know, but she certainly told me plenty. She told me about her affairs laughingly, while she was climbing over me or when I had it in her, or just when I was about to come. She would tell me how they went about it, how big they were or how small, what they said when they got excited and so on and so forth giving me every possible detail, just as though I were going to write a textbook on the subject. She didn't seem to have the least feeling of sacredness about her own body or her feelings or anything connected with herself. "Francie, you bloody fucker," I used to say, "you've got the morals of a clam." "But you like me, don't you?" she'd answer. "Men like to fuck, and so do women. It doesn't harm anybody and it doesn't mean you have to love every one you fuck does it? I wouldn't want to be in love; it must be terrible to have to fuck the same man all the time, don't you think? Listen, if you didn't fuck anybody but me all the time you'd get tired of me quick, wouldn't you? Sometimes it's nice to be fucked by someone you don't know at all. Yes, I think that's the best of all," she added – "there's no complications, no telephone numbers, no love letters, no scraps, what? Listen, do you think this is very bad? Once I tried to get my brother to fuck me; you know what a sissy he is – he gives everybody a pain. I don't remember exactly how it was any more, but anyway we were in the house alone and I was passionate that day. He came into my bedroom to ask me for something. I was lying there with my dress up, thinking about it and wanting it terribly, and when he came in I didn't give a damn about his being my brother, I just thought of him as a man, and so I lay there with my skirt up and I told him I wasn't feeling well, that I had a pain in my stomach. He wanted to run right out and get something for me but I told him no, just to rub my stomach a bit, that would do it good. I opened my waist and made him rub my bare skin. He was trying to keep his eyes on the wall, the big idiot, and rubbing me as though I were a piece of wood. 'It's not there, you chump,' I said, 'it's lower down . . . what are you afraid of?' And I pretended that I was in agony. Finally he touched me accidentally. "There! that's it!' I shouted. 'Oh do rub it, it feels so good!' Do you know, the big sap actually massaged me for five minutes without realizing that it was all a game? I was so exasperated that I told him to get the hell out and leave me alone. 'You're a eunuch,' I said, but he was such a sap I don't think he knew what the word meant." She laughed, thinking what a ninny her brother was. She said he probably still had his maiden. What did I think about it – was it so terribly bad? Of course she knew I wouldn't think anything of the kind. "Listen Francie," I said, "did you ever tell that story to the cop you're going with?" She guessed she hadn't. "I guess so too," I said. "He'd beat the piss out of you if ever he heard that yam." "He's socked me already," she answered promptly. "What?" I said, "you let him beat you up?" "I don't ask him to," she said, "but you know how quick-tempered he is. I don't let anybody else sock me but somehow coming from him I don't mind so much. Sometimes it makes me feel good inside … I don't know, maybe a woman ought to get beaten up once in a while. It doesn't hurt so much, if you really like a guy. And afterwards he's so damned gentle – I almost feel ashamed of myself…"