Sexus

by Henry Miller

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  “It’s only me,” came the timid, quaking voice which I recognized immediately.

  “Oh, it’s you! Why didn’t you say so? What is it?”

  “I only wanted to know,” came the faint, dragging voice with a slowness which was exasperating, “if Henry was there?”

  “Yes, of course he’s here,” snapped Maude, pulling herself together. “Oh, Melanie,” she said, as if the latter were torturing her, “is that all you wanted to know? Couldn’t you. . .?”

  “There’s a telephone call for Henry,” said poor old Melanie. And then even more slowly, as if she were just able to get that much more out of her system: “I . . . think . . . it’s important.”

  “All right,” I yelled, getting up from the couch and buttoning my fly, I’ll be right there!”

  When I picked up the receiver I got quite a shock. It was Curley telephoning from Cockroach Hall. He couldn’t tell me what it was, he said, but I was to get home as fast as I could.

  “Don’t talk that way,” I said, “tell me the truth. What’s happened? Is it Mona?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but she’ll be all right in a little while.”

  “She’s not dead then?”

  “No, but it was a close call. Hurry up . . .” and with that he hung up.

  In the hall I ran into Melanie, her bosom half exposed, limping along with melancholy satisfaction. She gave me an understanding look, one of pity, envy and reproach combined. “I wouldn’t have disturbed you, you know”—her voice drawled painfully upward—“.f they hadn’t said it was important. Dear me,” and she started dragging her body toward the stairs, “there’s so much to do. When you’re young . . .”

  I didn’t wait to hear her out. I ran downstairs and almost into Maude’s arms.

  “What is it?” she asked solicitously. Then, since I didn’t answer immediately, she added: “Did something happen . . . to. . . to her?”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” said I, fumbling about for my coat and hat.

  “Must you go right away? I mean . . .”

  There was more than anxiety in Maude’s voice; there was a hint of disappointment, a faint suggestion of disapproval.

  “I didn’t turn the light on,” she continued, moving towards the lamp as if to switch it on, “because I was afraid Melanie might come down with you.” She fussed a little with her bathrobe, as if to bring my mind back to the subject which was uppermost in her mind.

  I suddenly realized that it was cruel to run off without a little show of tenderness.

  “I’ve really got to run,” I said, dropping my hat and coat and moving swiftly to her side. “I hate to leave you now . . . like this,” and taking the hand which was about to light the lamp, I drew her to me and embraced her. She offered no resistance. On the contrary, she put her head back and offered her lips. In a moment my tongue was in her mouth and her body, limp and warm, was pressing convulsively against mine. (“Hurry, hurry!” came Curley’s words.) “I’ll make it quick,” I said to myself, not caring now whether I made a rash move or not. I slipped my hand under her gown and plunged the fingers into her crotch. To my surprise she reached for my fly, opened it, and took out my prick. I backed her against the wall and let her place my prick against her cunt. She was all aflame now, conscious of every move she made, deliberate and imperious. She handled my prick as if it were her own private property.

  It was awkward trying to get at it bolt upright. “Let’s lie here,” she whispered, sinking to her knees and dragging me down likewise.

  “You’ll catch cold,” I said, as she feverishly attempted to slide out of her things.

  “I don’t care,” she said, pulling my pants down and pulling me to her recklessly. “Oh God,” she groaned, chewing her lips again and squeezing my balls as I slow inserted my prick. “Oh God, give it to me . . . put it all the way in!” and she gasped and groaned with pleasure.

  Not wishing to jump up immediately and make a grab for my hat and coat I rested there on top of her, my prick still inside her and stiff as a ramrod. She was like a ripe fruit inside and the pulp seemed to be breathing. Soon I felt the two little flags fluttering; it was like a flower swaying, and the caress of the petals was tantalizing. They were moving uncontrollably, not with hard, convulsive jerks, but like silken flags responding to a breeze. And then it was as though she suddenly assumed the control: with the walls of her cunt she became a soft lemon squeezer inside, plucking and clutching at will, almost as if she had grown an invisible hand.

  Lying absolutely still, I surrendered myself to these artful manipulations. (“Hurry, hurry!” But I recalled very clearly now that he had said she wasn’t dead.) I could always summon a taxi; a few minutes more or less wouldn’t matter. Nobody would ever imagine that I had stayed behind for this.

  (Take your pleasure while it lasts. . . . Take your pleasure.)

  She knew now that I wouldn’t run. She knew that she could draw it out as long as she pleased, especially lying quiet this way, fucking only with that inner cunt, fucking with a mindless mind.

  I put my mouth to hers and began to fuck with my tongue. She could do the most amazing things with her tongue, things I had forgotten she knew. Sometimes she slid it into my throat as though to let me swallow it, then withdrew it tantalizingly to concentrate on the signaling below. Once I pulled my prick out all the way, to give it a breath of air, but she reached for it greedily and slipped it back in again, thrusting herself forward so that it would touch bottom. Now I drew it out just to the tip of her cunt and, like a dog with a moist nose, I sniffed at it with the tip of my pecker. This little game was too much for her; she began to come, a long-drawn-out orgasm that exploded softly like a five-pointed star. I was in such a cold-blooded state of control that as she went through her spasms I poked it around inside her like a demon, up, sideways, down, in, out again, plunging, rearing, jabbing, snorting, and absolutely certain that I wouldn’t come until I was damned good and ready.

  And now she did something she had never done before. Moving with furious abandon, biting my lips, my throat, my ears, repeating like a crazed automaton, “Go on, give it to me, go on, give it, go on, oh God, give it, give to me!” she went from one orgasm to another, pushing, thrusting, raising herself, rolling her ass, lifting her legs and twining them round my neck, groaning, grunting, squealing like a pig, and then suddenly, thoroughly exhausted, begging me to finish her off, begging me to shoot. “Shoot it, shoot it. . . I’ll go mad.” Lying there like a sack of oats, panting, sweating, utterly helpless, utterly played out, that she was, I slowly and deliberately rammed my cock back and forth, and when I had enjoyed the chopped sirloin, the mashed potatoes, the gravy and all the spices, I shot a wad into the mouth of her womb that jolted her like an electric charge.

  In the subway I tried to prepare myself for the ordeal ahead. Somehow I felt certain that Mona was not in danger. To tell the truth, the news was not altogether a shock; I had been expecting an outburst of some sort for weeks. A woman can’t go on pretending that she is indifferent when her whole future is in jeopardy. Particularly a woman who feels guilty. While I didn’t doubt that she had made an effort to do something desperate, I knew also that her instincts would prevent her from accomplishing her end. What I feared more than anything was that she might have bungled the job. My curiosity was aroused. What had she done? How had she gone about it? Had she planned it knowing that Curley would come to the rescue? I hoped, in some strange, perverted way, that her story would sound convincing; I didn’t want to hear some preposterous, outlandish tale which in my unsettled condition would cause me to burst out into hysterical laughter. I wanted to be able to listen with a straight face—to look sorrowful and sympathetic because I felt sorrowful and sympathetic. Drama always affected me strangely, always aroused the sense of the ridiculous, especially when motivated by love. Perhaps that was why, in moments of desperation, I could always laugh at myself. The moment I made the decision to act I became another
person—the actor. And of course I always overplayed the part. I suppose that at bottom this queer behavior was based on an incurable dislike for deception. Even though it meant saving my own skin, I hated to take people in. To break down a woman’s resistance, to make her love you, to awaken her jealousy, to win her back—it went against the grain to accomplish these things by even the unconscious use of legitimate methods. There was no triumph or satisfaction in it for me unless the woman surrendered voluntarily. I was always a bad suitor. I became discouraged easily, not because I doubted my own powers but because I distrusted them. I wanted the woman to come to me. I wanted her to make the advances. No danger of her becoming too bold! The more recklessly she gave herself the more I admired her. I hated virgins and shrinking violets. La femme fatale!—that was my ideal.

  How we hate to admit that we would like nothing better than to be the slave! Slave and master at the same time! For even in love the slave is always the master in disguise. The man who must conquer the woman, subjugate her, bend her to his will, form her according to his desires—is he not the slave of his slave? How easy it is, in this relationship, for the woman to upset the balance of power! The mere threat of self-dependence, on the woman’s part, and the gallant despot is seized with vertigo. But if they are able to throw themselves at one another recklessly, concealing nothing, surrendering all, if they admit to one another their interdependence, do they not enjoy a great and unsuspected freedom? The man who admits to himself that he is a coward has made a step towards conquering his fear; but the man who frankly admits it to everyone, who asks that you recognize it in him and make allowance for it in dealing with him, is on the way to becoming a hero. Such a man is often surprised, when the crucial test comes, to find that he knows no fear. Having lost the fear of regarding himself as a coward he is one no longer; only the demonstration is needed to prove the metamorphosis. It is the same in love. The man who admits not only to himself but to his fellow men, and even to the woman he adores, that he can be twisted around a woman’s finger, that he is helpless where the other sex is concerned, usually discovers that he is the more powerful of the two. Nothing breaks a woman down more quickly than complete surrender. A woman is prepared to resist, to be laid siege to: she has been trained to behave that way. When she meets no resistance she falls headlong into the trap. To be able to give oneself wholly and completely is the greatest luxury that life affords. Real love only begins at this point of dissolution. The personal life is altogether based on dependence, mutual dependence. Society is the aggregate of persons all interdependent. There is another richer life beyond the pale of society, beyond the personal, but there is no knowing it, no attainment possible, without first traversing the heights and depths of the personal jungle. To become the great lover, the magnetizer and catalyzer, the blinding focus and inspiration of the world, one has to first experience the profound wisdom of being an utter fool. The man whose greatness of heart leads him to folly and ruin is to a woman irresistible. To the woman who loves, that is to say. As to those who ask merely to be loved, who seek only their own reflection in the mirror, no love, however great, will ever satisfy them. In a world so hungry for love it is no wonder that men and women are blinded by the glamor and glitter of their own reflected egos. No wonder that the revolver shot is the last summons. No wonder that the grinding wheels of the subway express, though they cut the body to pieces, fail to precipitate the elixir of love. In the egocentric prism the helpless victim is walled in by the very light which he refracts. The ego dies in its own glass cage. . . .

  My thoughts were running crabwise. Melanie’s image popped up suddenly. She was always there, like a fleshy tumor. Something bestial and angelic about her. Always limping along, dragging her words, droning, drooling, her enormous melancholy eyes hanging like hot coals in their sockets. She was one of those beautiful hypochondriacs who, in becoming unsexed, take on the mysterious sensual qualities of the creatures which fill the apocalyptic menagerie of William Blake. She was extremely absent-minded, not about the usual trivialities of routine life, but about her body. It was not at all unusual for her to roam about the house, doing the chores which never ended, with her full milk-white teats exposed. Maude was always berating her, always furious about Melanie’s indecencies, as she called them. But Melanie was as innocent as an insane otter. And if the word “otter” seems odd it is because it is so appropriate. With Melanie all sorts of absurd images always leaped into my mind. She was only “mildly” insane, so to speak. The more her mental faculties dribbled away the more obsessive her body became. Her mind had sunk down into the flesh and, if she was awkward and doddering in her movements, it was because she was thinking with this fleshy body and not her brain. Whatever sex there was in her seemed to have become distributed throughout the body; it wasn’t localized any more, neither between her legs nor elsewhere. She had no sense of shame. The hair on her cunt, if she happened to expose it at the breakfast table while serving us, was undifferentiated from her toenails or her belly button. I am sure that had I ever absent-mindedly touched her cunt, while reaching for the coffeepot, she would have reacted no differently than if I had touched her arm. Often, when I was taking a bath, she would open the door unconcernedly and hang the towels on the rack over the tub, excusing herself in a weak, self-effacing way, but never making the slightest attempt to avert her eyes. Sometimes, on such occasions, she would stand and talk to me a few moments— about her pets or her bunions or the menu for the morrow—looking at me with absolute candor, never in the least embarrassed. Though she was old and had white hair her flesh was alive, almost revoltingly alive for one her age. Naturally now and then I got an erection lying there in the tub with her looking on unabashed and talking utter gibberish. Once or twice Maude had come upon us unawares. She was horrified, of course. “You must be crazy,” she said to Melanie. “Oh dear,” the latter replied, “what a fuss you make! I’m sure Henry doesn’t mind,” and she would smile that melancholy, wistful smile of the hypochondriac. Then she would shuffle off to her room, which Maude had selected for her to live in. Wherever we lived Melanie’s room was always exactly the same. It was a room where Dementia was caged and imprisoned. Always the parrot in its cage, always a mangy poodle, always the same daguerreotypes, always the sewing machine, always the brass bedstead and the old-fashioned trunk. A disorderly room which to Melanie seemed like Paradise. A room filled with shrill barks, with squawks punctuated by caressing murmurs, coaxings, cooings, jumbled phrases, squeals of affection. Sometimes, in passing the open door, I would catch her sitting on the bed clad only in her chemise, the parrot perched on her crooked hand, the dog nibbling at the bait between her legs. “Hello,” she would say, looking up at me with blank, bland innocence. “It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?” And perhaps she would push the dog away, not because of shame or embarrassment, but because he was tickling her with his diabolically cunning little moist tongue.

  Sometimes I stole into her room on the quiet, just to snoop around. I was curious about Melanie, about the letters she received, the books she read, and so on. Nothing was hidden away in her room. Neither was anything ever fully consumed. There was always a little water in the saucer under the bed, always some half-nibbled crackers lying on the trunk or a piece of cake which she had bitten into and forgotten to finish. Sometimes an open book lay on the bed, the page held open by a torn slipper. Bulwer-Lytton was one of her authors, apparently, also Rider Haggard. She seemed to be interested in magic, in the black art more particularly. There was a pamphlet about mesmerism which betrayed evidences of having been well thumbed. The most amazing discovery, tucked away in one of the bureau drawers, was of a rubber instrument which had only one use, unless Melanie in her cracked way had intended it for some wholly innocent usage. Whether Melanie somtimes whiled away a pleasant hour with this object, as did the nuns of old, or whether she had bought it in a junk shop and hidden it away for some unsuspected use some time or other in the course of her never-ending life, was a mystery to me.
It was not difficult for me to picture her lying on the filthy quilt clad in her torn chemise, poking this thing in and out of her twat in absent-minded glee. I could even picture the dog licking the juice that slowly trickled between her legs. And the parrot squawking insanely, perhaps repeating some idiotic phrase which Melanie had taught it, such as, “Ever so easy, dearie!” or, “Get a move on now, get a move on!”

  A queer one, Melanie, and even though her wits had flown, she understood in a primitive, almost cannibalistic way that sex was everywhere, like food and water and sleep and bunions. It used to exasperate me that Maude kept up such unnecessary pretenses when Melanie was around. If we lay on the couch after dinner, to enjoy a quiet little fuck in the dark, Maude would suddenly jump up and switch on a soft light—so that Melanie wouldn’t suspect what we were up to, or that she wouldn’t intrude absent-mindedly to hand us a letter which she had forgotten to give us at breakfast. I used to enjoy the thought of Melanie breaking in on us (say just as Maude is climbing over me), breaking in on us to hand me a letter, and me taking the letter with a smile and a thank you, and Melanie standing there a moment to say some little nothing about the hot water being too hot or asking Maude if she wanted eggs for the morning or some headcheese. It would have given me a great kick to pull off a stunt like that on Maude. But Maude could never admit to herself that Melanie knew we had intercourse together. Regarding her either as an idiot or wholly daft, she had made herself believe that people like Melanie never thought of sex. Her stepfather had had no sex life with this demented creature, that she was certain of. She wouldn’t go into it, why she was so certain, but she was positive of it, and the way she dismissed the subject indicated all too clearly that she thought a crime had been done her stepfather. One would almost think, to follow her, that Melanie had deliberately addled her pate in order to deprive the stepfather of his sexual due.