If Arthur Raymond had been a book I could have tossed him aside. But he was a river incarnate, and the bed through which he pulsed like a dynamo was but a few steps removed from the ledge in which we had carved a sheltering niche. Even in sleep the roar of his voice was present; we emerged from our slumbers with the stunned expression of those who have been deafened in their sleep. This force, which no one had been able to canalize or transform, became an omnipresent menace. Thinking of him in later years, I often likened him in my mind to those turbulent rivers which slip their banks and double back on their tracks, forming mighty loops like the writhings of a serpent, seeking in vain to spend their uncontrollable energies, finishing their agony by catapulting into the sea with a dozen furious mouths.

But the force which was sweeping Arthur Raymond on to nullification was at that time, by very reason of its menacing aspect, lulling and hypnotic. Like mandragores under a glass roof, Mona and I lay rooted in our own bed, which was a strictly human bed, and fertilized the egg of hermaphroditic love. When the tingle of spray ceased to splash against the glass roof of our indifference we would gurgle from the roots with that plaintive chant of the flower which is humanized by the sperm of the dying criminal. The master of the toccata and fugue would have been appalled could he have heard the reverberations which his roar engendered.

It was only a short time after we were installed in the Palace of Time and the River that I discovered one morning, while taking a shower, that the head of my cock was ringed with bleeding sores. It gave me quite a fright, needless to say. Immediately I thought that I had contracted the «syph». And since I had been faithful in my way I could only suppose that Mona had given it to me.

However, it isn't in my nature to run to the doctor at once. With us the doctor has always been looked upon as a mountebank if not a downright criminal. We usually wait for the surgeon who of course is in league with the undertaker. We always pay handsomely for the perpetual care of the grave.

«It will go away of itself», I told myself, taking my prick out twenty or thirty times a day.

It could have been a back-fire from one of those menstrual pea-soup fucks too. Often, in fatuous masculine pride, one mistakes the tomato juice flow of the period for a pre-coital flow. Many a proud dick is sunk in this Scapa Flow...

The simplest thing, of course, was to question Mona, which I promptly proceeded to do.

«Now listen,» I said, still in good humor, «if you've got a dose you'd better tell me. I'm not going to ask you how you came by it... I want the truth, that's all.»

The directness of this made her burst out laughing. She laughed a little too heartily, I thought.

«You could get a dose from sitting on the toilet,» I said.

This made her laugh even more heartily—almost hysterically.

«Or it could be a throw-back from an old dose. I don't care when or where it happened... have you got it, that's what I want to know.»

The answer was No. Emphatically No! She was sobering up now and with the change came a little show of anger. How could I think up such an accusation? What did I take her for—a trollop?

«Well, if that's the case,» said I, putting a good face on it, «there's no need to worry. You don't get a clap out of thin air. I'll forget about it...»

But then it wasn't so easy to forget—just like that. In the first place the fucking was taboo. A week had passed, and a week is a long time when you're used to fucking every night and in between a piece now and then—on the wing, as it were.

Every night it stood up like a pole. I even went to the absurd length of using a condom—just once— because it hurt like hell. The only other thing to do was to play stink-finger or suck her off. I was a little leery about the latter, despite her prophylactic protestations.

Masturbation was the best substitute. In fact, it opened up a new area of exploration. Psychologically, I mean. Lying there, with my arm around her and my fingers up her crotch, she became strangely confidential. It was as though the erogenous zone of her mind were being tickled by my fingers. The juice began to spill out.... «the dirt», as she had once called it.

Interesting how women dish up the truth! Often they begin with a lie, a harmless little lie, which is just a feeler. Just to see how the wind blows, don't you know. Should they sense that you're not too hurt, not too offended, they risk a morsel of truth, a few crumbs cleverly wrapped in a tissue of lies.

That wild automobile ride, for instance, which she's rehearsing under her breath. One wasn't to think for one moment that she enjoyed going out with three strange men—and two dopey fluffs from the dance hall. She had only consented because at the last minute there was no other girl to be found. And then, of course, she may have been hoping, though she didn't know it at the time, that one of the men might be human, might listen to her story and help her out—with a fifty dollar bill perhaps. (She always had her mother to fall back on: mother, the prime cause and motivator of all crime...).

And then, as always happens on automobile rides, they began to get fresh. If the other girls hadn't been along it might have turned out differently; they had their dresses up over their knees before the car had hardly started. They had to drink too—that was the worst of it. Of course she only pretended to drink... swallowed just a few drops... enough to wet her whistle... the others gulped it down. She didn't mind so much kissing the men either—that was nothing—but the way they grabbed her right away... pulling her teats out and running their hands up her legs... the two of them at once. They must have been Italians, she thought. Lecherous brutes.

Then she confessed to something which I knew was a god-damned lie, but it was interesting just the same. One of those «deformations» or «displacements», as in dreams. Yes, you see, oddly enough the other two girls felt sorry for her... sorry that they had got her into such a pickle. They knew she wasn't in the habit of sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry. So they stopped the car and changed seats, letting her sit up front with the hairy guy who had seemed decent and quiet thus far. They sat on the men's laps in the back, their dresses raised, facing forward, and while smoking their cigarettes and laughing and drinking, they let the men in the rear have their fill of pleasure.

«And what did the other guy do while this was going on?» I finally felt impelled to ask.

«He didn't do anything,» she said. «I let him hold my hand and I talked to him as fast as I could so as to keep his mind off it.»

«Come on,» I said, «don't tell me that. Now what did he do— out with it!»

Well, anyway, he did hold her hand for a long time, believe it or not. Besides, what could he do— wasn't he driving the car?

«You mean to say he never thought of stopping the car?»

Of course he did. He tried several times, but she talked him out of it... That was the line. She was thinking desperately how to get round to the truth.

«And after a while?» I said, just to ease her over the rough spots.

«Well, all of a sudden he dropped my hand...» She paused.

«Go on!»

«And then he grabbed it again and placed it in his lap. His fly was open and it was standing up... and twitching. It was a tremendous thing. I got terribly frightened. But he wouldn't let me take my hand away. I had to jerk him off. Then he stopped the car and tried to push me out. I begged him not to throw me out. 'Drive on slowly,' I said, 'I'll do it... later. I'm frightened.' He wiped himself with a handkerchief and started going again. Then he began talking the vilest filth...»

«Like what? Just what did he say, do you remember?»