第78章

That sort of thing!But she treated me with insolence.And she got so's she'd never have me when I wanted her:never.Always put me off,brutal as you like.And then when she'd put me right off,and I didn't want her,she'd come all lovey-dovey,and get me.And I always went.But when I had her,she'd never come off when I did.Never!She'd just wait.If I kept back for half an hour,she'd keep back longer.And when I'd come and really finished,then she'd start on her own account,and I had to stop inside her till she brought herself off,wriggling and shouting,she'd clutch clutch with herself down there,an'then she'd come off,fair in ecstasy.

And then she'd say:That was lovely!Gradually I got sick of it:and she got worse.She sort of got harder and harder to bring off,and she'd sort of tear at me down there,as if it was a beak tearing at me.By God,you think a woman's soft down there,like a fig.But I tell you the old rampers have beaks between their legs,and they tear at you with it till you're sick.Self!Self!Self!all self!tearing and shouting!They talk about men's selfishness,but I doubt if it can ever touch a woman's blind beakishness,once she's gone that way.Like an old trull!And she couldn't help it.

I told her about it,I told her how I hated it.And she'd even try.She'd try to lie still and let me work the business.She'd try.But it was no good.She got no feeling off it,from my working.She had to work the thing herself,grind her own coffee.And it came back on her like a raving necessity,she had to let herself go,and tear,tear,tear,as if she had no sensation in her except in the top of her beak,the very outside top tip,that rubbed and tore.That's how old whores used to be,so men used to say.It was a low kind of self-will in her,a raving sort of self-will:

like in a woman who drinks.Well in the end I couldn't stand it.We slept apart.She herself had started it,in her bouts when she wanted to be clear of me,when she said I bossed her.She had started having a room for herself.

But the time came when I wouldn't have her coming to my room.I wouldn't.

'I hated it.And she hated me.My God,how she hated me before that child was born!I often think she conceived it out of hate.Anyhow,after the child was born I left her alone.And then came the war,and I joined up.And I didn't come back till I knew she was with that fellow at Stacks Gate.

He broke off,pale in the face.

'And what is the man at Stacks Gate like?'asked Connie.

'A big baby sort of fellow,very low-mouthed.She bullies him,and they both drink.'

'My word,if she came back!'

'My God,yes!I should just go,disappear again.'

There was a silence.The pasteboard in the fire had turned to grey ash.

'So when you did get a woman who wanted you,'said Connie,'you got a bit too much of a good thing.'

'Ay!Seems so!Yet even then I'd rather have her than the never-never ones:the white love of my youth,and that other poison-smelling lily,and the rest.'

'What about the rest?'said Connie.

'The rest?There is no rest.Only to my experience the mass of women are like this:most of them want a man,but don't want the sex,but they put up with it,as part of the bargain.The more old-fashioned sort just lie there like nothing and let you go ahead.They don't mind afterwards:

then they like you.But the actual thing itself is nothing to them,a bit distasteful.Add most men like it that way.I hate it.But the sly sort of women who are like that pretend they're not.They pretend they're passionate and have thrills.But it's all cockaloopy.They make it up.Then there's the ones that love everything,every kind of feeling and cuddling and going off,every kind except the natural one.They always make you go off when you're not in the only place you should be,when you go off.--Then there's the hard sort,that are the devil to bring off at all,and bring themselves off,like my wife.They want to be the active party.--Then there's the sort that's just dead inside:but dead:and they know it.Then there's the sort that puts you out before you really "come",and go on writhing their loins till they bring themselves off against your thighs.

But they're mostly the Lesbian sort.It's astonishing how Lesbian women are,consciously or unconsciously.Seems to me they're nearly all Lesbian.'

'And do you mind?'asked Connie.

'I could kill them.When I'm with a woman who's really Lesbian,I fairly howl in my soul,wanting to kill her.'

'And what do you do?'

'Just go away as fast as I can.'

'But do you think Lesbian women any worse than homosexual men?'

'I do!Because I've suffered more from them.In the abstract,I've no idea.When I get with a Lesbian woman,whether she knows she's one or not,I see red.No,no!But I wanted to have nothing to do with any woman any more.I wanted to keep to myself:keep my privacy and my decency.'

He looked pale,and his brows were sombre.

'And were you sorry when I came along?'she asked.

'I was sorry and I was glad.'

'And what are you now?'

'I'm sorry,from the outside:all the complications and the ugliness and recrimination that's bound to come,sooner or later.That's when my blood sinks,and I'm low.But when my blood comes up,I'm glad.I'm even triumphant.I was really getting bitter.I thought there was no real sex left:never a woman who'd really "come"naturally with a man:except black women,and somehow,well,we're white men:and they're a bit like mud.'

'And now,are you glad of me?'she asked.

'Yes!When I can forget the rest.When I can't forget the rest,I want to get under the table and die.'

'Why under the table?'

'Why?'he laughed.'Hide,I suppose.Baby!'

'You do seem to have had awful experiences of women,'she said.

'You see,I couldn't fool myself.That's where most men manage.They take an attitude,and accept a lie.I could never fool myself.I knew what I wanted with a woman,and I could never say I'd got it when I hadn't.'

'But have you got it now?'

'Looks as if I might have.'

'Then why are you so pale and gloomy?'

'Bellyful of remembering:and perhaps afraid of myself.'

She sat in silence.It was growing late.