Chapter 6
That Was good, Rufe thinks.
Good that he met her, good that they did it, good that he left when he did, as he did.
With no farewells, no promises, no arrangements for the future.
On the one hand, perhaps it was a shame to walk out on so fine a piece of ass.
But, on the other, he must consider her an example of nature's bounty, of the generosity of the world in its bestowal of physiques.
And to cling to her, well, that would be a sign of his bad faith, of his lack of confidence in nature, in himself.
No, he must move on in his life.
Onward and upward.
But first, he must sleep, must recover his energy. So he picks up his groceries, goes home, has lunch, and takes a nap.
He is pleased that darkness is falling as he awakens.
He must go out and see what the world after dark has to offer by way of nature's bounty.
He showers again, gets dressed in open-throated sport shirt, pastel slacks and breeze-weave shoes, and he is out for the evening.
The pool hall. Losers.
Big talkers, big doers, to hear them tell it.
But this is really grim, hanging about a dingy aggregation of pool tables, hoping to prove their worth with cue and balls.
Pass, he tells himself.
And here-what?
The bar is likewise seedy, run-down. And the girls?
They are too young, their skirts too short, their stockings too mesh, their makeup too heavy.
Hustlers, being very blatant about it as though somehow proud to be doing this, as if carrying on in some grand tradition.
The world's oldest profession it may be, but today's expert practitioners know better than to let a man off with a one-time, one-pay deal.
You're blowin' it, ladies, he tells them silently.
Because they are losers cruising losers.
And whether they tumble or whether they pass, it is a game the girls cannot win.
They are playing a lottery whose prizes are not worth the effort required to win them.
Depressing, Rufe thinks. A waste.
On this corner, a crack deal.
"Fuck you lookin' at, bro'?"
"Hey, if that's the attitude, I'll get mine some-where's else-bro'," he replies.
"Oh now hey, wait a minute, ah din' mean nuthin' ba what I-" Rufe bows his head, shaking his hands in the air, palms up.
Meaning, Forget you, punk, you're history that never even got written.
And of course, the punk does not, cannot pursue.
Because this is his corner.
And he has a certain volume of business to transact, a certain amount of time in which to do it.
Next time, he will not be so quick to display his territorial demeanor.
Next time, Rufe will not have to so much as talk to him.
And can look at him all he wants. Big fucking deal.
Another loser, who will end up behind bars if he's lucky, face down in the gutter if he isn't.
And will most likely lead an existence which will start with the one and end with the other.
Old winos in doorways he passes now.
Dreaming who knows what?
Perhaps of the day when they need dream no longer.
When a great and final truth will replace the lies they tell themselves just to pass the time, time which, for them, moves all too slowly, has gone on far, far too long.
And no use to wish them luck, because they never had, never will have any.
I needed this, Rufe tells himself.
He needed to get back out here in that other part of the real world, its underside.
To see real problems, beside which his own seem to take on all the importance of games in a pinball arcade-intense enough while they last, but having no meaning in absolute reality. Which this is.
And with which they are all, meaning this entire community, coping quite badly.
Because there is not one winner among them.
Not even one person to whom Rufe can point and truly tell himself that that individual is better off than himself.
So much of it here, the hopelessness, the losing.
He had forgotten.
Better to not go on here, he tells himself.
Because the neon flashes and the voices laugh.
But it is the neon of a dingy, hopeless world, the bright, grimy signposts that all read NO WAY OUT.
And the laughs are those of cynicism, meaningless, despait.
So that there is nothing here for him.
Nothing.
But really, he tells himself, I needed this.
To bring him back to his senses.
What the fuck was that supposed to mean before with the big woman-natural happiness?
The dream, the fantasy of himself and this, this... Ruby, he thinks he heard the social worker call her, off somewhere on some island.
While her kids do what?
While she and he-speak of the devil.
It's het.
Bopping down the street, wearing-what else-a red dress, on the arm of some nasty looking character in a dark sportshirt and light slacks.
And he cannot resist.
" 'Lo, Ruby," he says.
"Wha-what?"
"Lady's with me, bro'."
Lady is so drunk she doesn't know who the fuck she's with-bro', is what he feels like answering. But why?
For a confrontation with this loser? Enough that he draws his next breath, Rufe thinks.
Enough that he must face the next dawn and know who and what it is looking back at him in the mirror.
Enough that he knows that he has no future and no possibility of one.
So that Rufe has no intention of giving meaning to his meaningless existence by a so-called meaningful encounter.
"Her kids with you too, are they?" Rufe asks.
And he peers around as though trying to see behind them.
"Nemmine about no fuckin' keeds, bro'. That be de lady's worry, o-kay?"
"Yeah, right," Rufe sighs.
And looks at Ruby, who smiles innanely at him.
And leans heavily, nodding, on the arm of this would-be and no doubt will-be stud.
Rufe gives them both looks as though he smells something foul and disgusting, shakes his head, and moves on.
"Guess I told him, huh, babe?" he hears the stud ask her.
"Tole who?" he hears Ruby reply. And suddenly, he wants to be somewhere, anywhere other than here.
"Well, well, look who's back, Carlotta!
"The prodigal chauffeur has returned!
"Break out the fatted whatever, while I fall on his neck and kiss him."
They are wearing transparent negligees, Cynthia and Carlotta.
The TV is blaring, the champagne flowing.
And a pseudo-good time is being had by all, apparently.
Rufe looks from one to the other.
Both of them are a bit under the weather and feeling no pain.
"Care to join us?" Cynthia asks, swaying slightly, bottle in one hand, glass in the other.
But Rufe just stands there in the marbled hallway, above the sunken, carpeted living room.
"He does not care... to join us," Cynthia says to Carlotta. "What do you think of that, Carlotta?"
And Carlotta responds with a long, resounding belch.
"My sentiments exactly," Cynthia says.
Shakily, she pours herself a glass of champagne from the bottle, spilling some on the rug.
She looks down at the spill, letting the bottle slip from her hand, its contents joining the spot, inundating it completely.
"Oops," Cynthia says, giggling.
And raises her glass.
"A toast!" she exclaims. "A toast to the men in my life!
"One night with me, and off they go, into the wild blue yonder!"
So, Rufe thinks, that's what this is all about.
And he sees that the celebration has been going on all day, apparently, judging by the mess.
And obviously, this is no picnic in the park.
Which, come to think of it, is probably just what Cynthia needs.
Get the fuck out of this mausoleum and suck air, will you? Rufe urges, mentally.
But he knows that that is not the real problem here.
The real problem is Chipper.
Chipper and now, himself.
To do what they did in bed and then to bug out was, by Cynthia's lights, in bad taste, to say the least.
But not, Rufe reminds himself the disaster it would have been had he remained.
And let her suck him dry of all the male content, all the male satisfaction he has to offer him, squeezing the juices out of him like a lemon whose remainder, whose rind must inevitably be discarded afterward.
No, he has definitely chosen the lesser of two evils.
Wrong to have abandoned her as he did, still wronger to have remained.
He, at least, has done the right thing and knows it.
Because Cynthia's real problem within her real problem is boredom.
It is a fact that she has no true life of her own.
She is on hold between Chipper's rare and short-lived homecomings.
Which begin in perversion and end in sudden departure.
Still, if she had a life, any life at all of her own, she could kill two birds with one stone-her boredom and Chipper's absence.
But she doesn't, and that's that.
Not his place to advise, to influence.
To attempt to do so would only cause further resentment.
And he is not exactly in her good graces to begin with, at the moment.
"You're ju, you're just in time," Cynthia says to him. "We were just about to adjourn to the bedroom to continue the festivities."
And Rufe knows better than to ask what it is they're supposed to be celebrating.
Because she is celebrating the same thing as what he came from last night.
That was merely an extension of this celebration to a different level of society and a different location.
But it is the same hopelessness, the same despair.
All that is required here is a flashing, dingy neon sign advertising beer but meaning no way out.
They have even done a great job working on the squalor.
Really dumb on Carlotta's part, if she made any of this mess, Rufe thinks. After all, she's the one who will have to clean it up.
But then, perhaps it's worth it for her, the extra work.
To ingratiate herself with her mistress, to show her the degree to which they are kindred spirits.
But that is a woman's device, and one not available to Rufe.
He has many possibilities; being just one of the girls is not one of them.
No, this is, has been a hen party all the way.
And now, of course, it's time to bring in the male entertainment.
Well timed, Rufe, he tells himself, bitterly.
Because he did not have to come back here.
But he did, at the end of a day of introspection, of walking around museums and art galleries, going through decompression after yesterday.
He has come back to the penthouse with the attitude of a man going into the office of a Monday morning after a depressing weekend, there to resume the daily grind.
But now- "Come on, Carlotta, time to clear the decks for action!
"Get 'em off, big boy, because this is a fucking party!"
And Cynthia throws her champagne glass into the stone fireplace, smashing it, before removing her negligee.
Carlotta shrugs, not looking at Rufe, and follows suit.
So that now, both women are naked.
And Cynthia stands beside Carlotta and grasps her tits from behind, aiming them at Rufe and half saying, half singing, "If you want it, here it is, come and get it!"
And Rufe continues the old song in his mind, Make your mind up fast!
If you want it, here it is, come and get it! Better hurry, 'cause it might not last! And for him, he knows that this is only too true. So he too removes his clothes as they watch.
No harm done here, now, he tells himself.
Because this is to be an orgy of despair, a fuck of desperation, an attempt to gain feeling when the senses are dulled, and one which is destined for partial success at best.
Still, with the reduction of her inhibitions through champagne, Cynthia could actually end up deluding herself that she is in fact having a good time.
And now, the two women flank him and the trio moves unsteadily into the bedroom.
Where they all sit down in unison on the side of the bed, Rufe carefully, the women heavily, letting gravity do the work.
"You eat Carlotta's pussy, Rufe, while I suck her tits," Cynthia drunkenly instructs.
And Carlotta assumes the position at once, legs raised and spread.
And Rufe, shrugging inwardly, crouches below her, sealing his mouth to her cunt.
Lemons, he tells himself.
Meaning that the women have been peeing and not bothering to clean themselves up afterward.
And in fact-no, the bed is still clean and dry.
So that there have been no previous excursions to the sack.
He has arrived at the juncture in the celebration of boredom and despair between alcohol and the flesh.
Well timed, ass hole, he tells himself, as he works on Carlotta's clit and she begins to respond to the double stimulation of Rufe's mouth and that of Cynthia, sucking her tits.
And now, Cynthia moves around to Carlotta's head and bridges her body with drunken meticulous-ness, moving slowly, carefully as she straddles her shoulders with a knee on either side.
And lowers her crotch onto Carlotta's face, even as she tells Rufe, "Let's take turns!"
And they do.
So that now Rufe is shafting his tongue in and out of Carlotta's hot, juicy cunt and now Cynthia is strumming Carlotta's engorged nub of a clit with her tongue. And Cynthia, for some reason, finds this hilarious.
But she soon tires of the game.
"My turn, dammit!" she says.
And flops beside Carlotta on her back, glaring and petulant.
But Carlotta very calmly begins sucking and kneading Cynthia's breasts.
As Rufe tastes her lemons.
Not a bad taste, Rufe tells himself.
He prefers a clean pussy, of course, but as less than fresh meat goes, this isn't bad.
Because of course Cynthia and Carlotta keep themselves super-clean most of the time.
Why not, with facilities such as these available to them and not much else to do, under normal circumstances.
And maybe Carlotta is looking forward to tomorrow, when she will have to clean all this up and thereby justify her existence here.
Because, of the three of them, she is the only one with real duties around the place.
Rufe and Cynthia are expendable.
And therein lies a bit of Carlotta's independence of attitude.
Because she is going along with the program, but, Rufe has no doubt, at a price.
Because Cynthia will know what she has done, what she has caused.
What she is doing is abusing her authority.
What she is causing is the occasion of her own later contrition.
Contrition.
Which is at least a genuine feeling, evidence of the fact that at least a part of her is alive.
So that yes, Cynthia is setting herself up for that.
And before whom should she feel contrite, if not Carlotta.
Because Rufe, being a man, is part of the problem.
He is the symbol of manhood, and Chipper's stand- in, almost to a fatal degree, if he isn't careful.
Because Chipper is not exactly the healthiest thing in the world to represent, chez Harrington.
Not with what the mistress of the household has against him, and not with her limited powers of retaliation.
Which could very well take a very obvious, if symbolic form.
And Rufe knows this only too well.
So that he is ardent and skillful in his attentions to Cynthia right now, counting on her inebriation to offset any misinterpretation of his expertise, his intensity.
And he forces himself to excitement over her.
By letting himself once again lapse into a fantasy world, an impossible world, in which he and she can be together, equals, lovers.
A world in which she does not have to get drunk, does not have to wallow in self pity, does not have to invent trite games of the body, played out in despair and boredom, and dissipating these last only temporarily, only during the act itself.
And he suspects that her landing will leave her much worse off than did her take-off.
Still, there is nothing to be done other than what he is doing.
"That's right," she murmurs, eyes closed, "put that big bastard right into me!" And of course, he does.
So that he is fucking her, long, slow, steady strokes, letting her dulled senses reach into herself and there find that which her body seeks.
And she does.
Because even now, her face turns red and small exclamations of sexual arousal escape her parted lips.
And Rufe does not know, does not care what images play on the insides of her closed eyelids.
Hopefully, they are not of him.
Because all he wants right now is a servant's credit for doing a servant's duty.
Which is to permit the use of his physical being to service the whims of his employer, that usage being expressed now in the extreme form.
And he does a good job on her, bringing her all the way along.
So that when, at length, the pleasure beyond pleasure is summoned, it is called forth from within the depths of the two of them.
So that they have a perfect climax together, his ejaculations alternating with the spasms of her multiple orgasms.
But Rufe pulls out as soon as they have finished, suddenly finding it distasteful being in contact with her.
As though he has suddenly realized that he is fucking a corpse.
Because he senses within her both her desperation, her struggle to be alive and the fact that she is not, a fact which cannot be entirely unknown to her, he is certain.
And she proves most desperate indeed. Because- "Come, Carlotta, you get to be Chipper! "Homecoming time! "Get with it, gal!"
And Cynthia keeps her legs raised and spread, pussy lips still parted, shiny now with pussy juice and the sperm which begins to ooze from the split peach of her cunt as it starts to melt.
And Carlotta knows what is expected.
But she is most careful to pause before starting, transfixing Cynthia's drunken gaze with her own piercing dark eyes for a long moment.
Making damned sure that Cynthia will remember this.
Making damned sure that she gets the unspoken message: You owe me, bitch!
And only then does she seal her mouth to Cynthia's overly juicy crotch.
And Rufe, watching, feels a faint wave of nausea rise in his stomach.
But then, he has seen Chipper do this many times.
Same cunt, different load. Sometimes even multiple loads. Sometimes even loads in more than one orifice, giving Chipper a veritable feast.
Carlotta does a good job and pulls back.
And Cynthia, smiling, eyes closed, says, "No, no, Chipper, that's okay.
"The other fellows took care of that part.
"I just want to curl up in a little ball and... go... to... si... " And she curls up on her side and sleeps.
Carlotta covers her with a sheet.
And Rufe follows her jolly ass out of the master bedroom.
Where Carlotta whirls on him, saying, in a hissing whisper, "Where de fock deed joo go, yesser-day?
"De wooman, chee bin outta her mine."
"I was entitled to a couple of days off, so I took 'em."
"Oh, thass reel nice, that ees, amigo!
"An' joo gotta pick rl' now, an' steeck me wP that fockin' head case een there!"
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly see you holdin' back none, babe."
"Yeah? Well I got eet jus' a leetle too knocked here to get foolish, joo know?"
"That I do, kiddo, only too well.
"Same boat, remember?
"And in that connection, don't tell me you never feel like runnin' outta here."
"Escreamin', matter of fack," she replies, grinning now.
"Well, there you are, then.
"And she started to make, to make... too much of me, y'know."
"I din' know, no."
"Yeah, well, I don't need the hot one week love affair, followed by the unemployment line.
"So I had no choice except to nip this thing in the bud."
"Tha' joo deed, pal, tha' joo deed!
"Ayayay, the poor leetle reech gal, no?
"I shout' have soch problems!"
"You an' me both, babe."