by Henry Miller
Melanie had a soft spot in her heart for me, always took my part when I quarreled with Maude, and never once that I can remember made any attempt to reproach me for my flagrant misbehavior. It was that way from the very beginning. Maude used to try to keep her out of sight, in the early days. Melanie was something she was deeply ashamed of—a walking reminder, it would seem, of the family taint. Melanie seemed not to notice the difference between good and bad people; she had only one guiding principle, an immediate response to kindness. And so, when she discovered that I was not trying to run away from her as soon as she opened her trap, when she found that I could listen to her prattle and not become distraught, like Maude, when she found that I enjoyed food and beer and wine, especially cheeses and bolognas, she was willing to be my slave. I held the most wonderful moronic conversations with her sometimes when Maude was absent—usually in the kitchen with a bottle of beer between us and perhaps a little liverwurst and a bit of Liederkranz on the side. Giving her free rein as I would on such occasions, I caught remarkable glimpses of her not uninteresting past. “They” seemed to have hailed from some indolent, semiconstipated region where the Würzburger flows. The women were always getting caught and the men were always going to jail for some trivial reason. It was a sort of Sunday school picnic atmosphere with kegs of beer, pumpernickel sandwiches, taffeta petticoats, lace drawers and stray goats fucking contentedly on the greensward. Sometimes I had a mind to ask her if she had ever let herself be fucked by a Shetland pony. If Melanie thought you sincerely wanted to know, she would answer a question like that without the least to do. You could pass from a question like that to a query about the communion service without modulating. There was no censor standing on her subliminal threshold; messengers came and went without the least formality.
It was wonderful to see how she took up the little Jap who was our star border. Tori Takekuchi was his name, and a delightful, gracious, princely little chap he was. He had taken the situation in at a glance, despite his inadequate grasp of the language. Of course, being a Jap, it was easy for him to smile and beam at Melanie when she posted herself at his doorsill and prattled like a cracked nanny goat. He smiled the same way at us, even when we informed him of a grave catastrophe. I think he would have given the same smile had I told him that I was going to die in a few minutes. Of course Melanie knew that Orientals smile in this inscrutable way, but she thought Mr. T.’s smile—that was how she called him always, “Mr. T.”—was particularly engaging. She thought he was like a doll. So clean and tidy too! Never left a crumb of dirt behind him.
When we got more intimate, and I must say that we all became very intimate before a month or two was out, Mr. T. began bringing girls to his room. He had, to be sure, discreetly taken me aside one day and asked if he might be permitted to bring a young lady home occasionally, offering the flimsy excuse (with a broad grin) that he had business to transact. I used his excuse to obtain Maude’s consent. I pretended that the little bugger was so unattractive that it couldn’t possibly be anything but business which would bring a pretty American girl to his room. Maude consented reluctantly, torn between the desire to keep up appearances with the neighbors and the fear of losing a generous boarder whose money we needed.
I wasn’t home when the first intruder stepped across the threshold, but I heard about it the next day—heard that she was “terribly cute.” It was Melanie who spilled the beans. She was so glad that he had found a little friend—like himself.
“But she’s not a friend,” Maude put in ceremoniously.
“Oh well,” drawled Melanie, “maybe it’s just business . . . but she was awfully cute. He has to have a girl, just like anyone else.”
A few weeks later Mr. T. had switched to another girl. This one wasn’t so “cute.” She was a good head taller than him, built like a panther, and quite obviously not there to talk business.
I congratulated him the next morning at table, asking him point-blank where he had picked up such a blazing beauty.
“Dance hall,” said Mr. T., baring his yellow fangs most amiably, then bursting into a girlish giggle.
“Very intelligent, yes?” I queried, just to keep the ball rolling.
“Oh yes, her very intelligent, her very good girl.”
“Look out she doesn’t give you a dose of clap,” says I, calmly swallowing my coffee.
I thought Maude would fall off the chair. How could I talk that way to Mr. T.? It was insulting as well as disgusting, she wanted me to know.
Mr. T. looked puzzled. He hadn’t yet learned the word “clap.” He was smiling, of course, and why shouldn’t he? He didn’t give a fuck what we said so long as we allowed him to do as he pleased.
Out of politeness I volunteered a definition. Headache, I explained.
He laughed uproariously at this. Very good joke. Yes, he understood. He understood nothing, the little prick, but it was polite to let him think he understood. Then I smiled too, a banjo smile, which made Mr. T. giggle some more, rinse his fingers in the water tumbler, belch and throw his napkin on the floor.
I must confess that he had good taste, Mr. T. No doubt he was generous with his money. They made my mouth water, some of them. To him I don’t think their beauty meant very much; he probably was more interested in their weight, the texture of their skin, and above all, in their cleanliness. He had all kinds—redheads, blondes, brunettes, short, tall, plump, lithe ones—quite as if he had drawn them from a grab bag. He was buying cunt—and that was all there was to it. At the same time he was learning a little more English. (“How you say this . . . ?” “What that called?” “You like bonbons, yes?”) He was good at making gifts—it was an art with him. I often thought, when I saw him taking a girl to his room, heard him giggle and stammer in that fuckee-wuckee way of the Japs, how much better off the girls were to have got hold of Mr. T. than some young American college boy out on a spree. I felt sure, too, that Mr. T. always got his money’s worth. (“You turn over, please.” “You suck now, yes?”) Compared to the artists in his own country, these dumb American bitches must have cut a sorrowful figure in Mr. T.’s eyes. I remembered O’Mara’s description of his visits to the bordels in Japan. They were like opium dreams, to hear him tell. The emphasis was placed on the preliminaries, apparently. There was music, incense, baths, massages, caresses, a full orchestration of seduction and enchantment, making the final consummation a thing of unbearable ecstasy. “Just like dolls,” O’Mara would say. “And so gentle, so loving. They bewitch you.” And then he would go into raptures about the tricks they had up their sleeves. They seemed to have a manual of fuck which began where ours left off. And all this in an ambiance of delicacy, as though fucking was the spiritual art, the vestibule to heaven.
Mr. T. had to make the most of it in his furnished room, fortunate indeed if he could find a piece of punk to burn. Whether he enjoyed himself or not was hard to tell, because to all questions he invariably answered: “Very good.” Now and then, coming in late, I caught him going to the bathroom after one of his sessions with an American cunt. He always went to the bathroom in straw slippers and kimono, a short kimono which just about covered his prick. Maude thought it was shocking, his running around in that rig, but Melanie thought it suited him to a T. “They all run around like that,” she said, knowing not a damned thing about it, but always ready to take the other person’s side.
“Good time, Mr. T.?” I would smile.
“Very good, very good,” and then a giggle. Perhaps he would scratch his balls while baring his teeth in a grin. “Water hot, yes?” In the bathroom he would go through his endless ablutions.
If he surmised that Maude were asleep he would sometimes beckon with his finger, signifying that he had something to show me. I would follow him to his room.
“I come in, yes?” he would say, frightening the girl out of her wits. “This Mr. Miller, my friend of mine . . . this Miss Slith.” They were always Smith, Brown or Jones, I noticed. He probably never bothered to ask their real names.
Some of the girls were of surprising caliber, I must say. “Cute, isn’t he?” they would often say. Whereupon Mr. T. would go over to the girl, as you would approach a figure in a shop window, and lift her dress. “Her very beautiful, yes?” And he’d proceed to inspect her twat as if he had bought stock in it.
“Here, you little devil, you can’t do that!” the girl would say.
“You go now, yes?” That was Mr. T.’s way of dispatching them. It sounded crude as hell, coming from a little yellow belly. But Mr. T. was unaware of being indelicate. He had given her a good fuck, he had licked her ass, he had paid her in honest coin and given her a little gift into the bargain . . . what more, for Christ’s sake? “You go now, yes?” And he would half close his eyes, look utterly wooden and disinterested, leaving not the least doubt in the girl’s mind that the speedier she left the healthier it would be for her.
“Next time you try! Her very small.” Here he would grin, making a little gesture with his fingers to show me how smooth it went. “Japanese girl sometimes very big. This country big girl small. Very good.” He would lick his chops after a remark like this. Then, as if to make the most of the occasion, he would take a toothpick and, while picking his teeth, he would look for the words he had written down in his little notebook. “This mean what? He would show me a word like “precarious” or “unearthly.” “Now I teach you Japanese word—OHIO! That mean Good Morning!” A broad grin. Still picking his teeth, or else examining his toes.
“Japanese very simple. All words pronounce same way,” and he would rattle off a string of words, giggling as he did so, probably because what they meant were “shit-heel,” “white bugger,” “foreign fool,” and so on. I didn’t give a shit what the words meant, since I had no intention of making a serious study of Japanese. What I was more interested in was his technique of picking up white women. To hear him, it was all very simple. Of course, many of the girls were recommended from one Jap to another. And many of these same girls must have made a specialty of Japs, knowing that they were clean and generous. Hump for the Japs, that’s what they were, and a profitable business it was. There was class to the Japs. They had cars of their own, dressed well, ate in good restaurants, and so on. Now a Chink was different. Chinks were white slavers. But a Jap you could trust. And so on. I could follow their reasoning perfectly. What they appreciated most were the little gifts the Japs made them. Americans never thought of giving gifts, not usually. A guy had to be a sap to piss away his money on a gift for a whore.
I don’t know why my mind reverted to the amiable Mr. T. It’s a devil of a long ride to the Bronx, and if you let your mind go you can write a book between Borough Hall and Tremont. Besides, despite the exhaustive bout with Maude, one of those slow, creepy erections was coming on. It’s a commonplace observation but true just the same—the more you fuck, the more you want to fuck, and the better you do fuck! When you overdo it your cock seems to get more flexible: it hangs limp, but on the alert, as it were. You only have to brush your hand over your fly and it responds. For days you can walk around with a rubber truncheon dangling between your legs. Women seem to sense it, too.
Now and then I tried to fix my mind on Mona, to set my face in plastic sorrow, but it wouldn’t last. I felt too damned good, too relaxed, too carefree. Horrible as it sounds, I thought more of the fuck I anticipated pulling off once I soothed her down. I smelled my fingers to make sure I had scoured them properly. In doing so a rather comical image of Maude assailed me. I had left her lying on the floor, exhausted, and had rushed to the bathroom to tidy myself up. As I was scrubbing my cock she opens the door. Wants to take a douche immediately always fearful of getting caught. I tell her to go ahead, not to mind me. She peels off her things, fastens the hose to the gas jet, and lies on the bath mat, her legs running up the wall.
“Can I help you?” says I, drying my cock and sprinkling some of her excellent sachet powder over it.
“Do you mind?” says she, wiggling her ass so that her legs will stand up straighter.
“Open it up a bit,” I urge, taking the nozzle in readiness to insert it.
She did as I told her, pulling her gash open with all her fingers. I bent over and examined it leisurely. It was a dark, liverish color and the lips were rather exaggerated. I took them between my fingers and rubbed them gently together, like you would two velvety petals. She looked so helpless lying with her ass propped against the wall and her legs sticking up straight, like the hands of a compass, that I had to chuckle.
“Please don’t fool now,” she begged, as if the delay of a few seconds might mean an abortion. “I thought you were in such a hurry.”
“I am,” I replied, “but Jesus, when I look at this thing I get horny again.”
I inserted the nozzle. The water began running out of her, over the floor. I threw some towels down to soak it up. When she stood up I took the soap and washrag and scrubbed her cunt for her. I soaped her well, inside and out—a delicious tactile sensation which was mutual.
It felt silkier than ever now, her cunt, and I whooshed my fingers in and out, like you’d strum a banjo. I had one of those halfhearted, swollen erections which makes a cock look even more murderous than when full-blown. It was hanging out of my fly, brushing her thigh. She was still naked. I began to dry her off. To do so comfortably I sat on the edge of the tub, my cock gradually stiffening and making spasmodic leaps at her. As I pulled her close, to dry her flanks, she looked down at it with a hungry, despairing look, fascinated and yet half-ashamed of herself for acting the glutton. Finally she could stand it no longer. She got to her knees impulsively and took it in her mouth. I ran my fingers through her hair, caressed the shell of her ear, the nape of her neck, caught her teats and massaged them gently, lingering over the nipples until they stood out taut. She had unfastened her mouth and was licking it now as if it were a stick of candy. “Listen,” said I, murmuring the words in her ear, “we won’t go through it again but just let me put it in a few moments and then I’ll go. It’s too good to stop all of a sudden. I won’t come, I promise. . . .” She looked at me imploringly, as if to say, “Can I believe you? Yes, I do want it. Yes, yes, only don’t knock me up, will you?”
I pulled her to her feet, turned her around like a dummy, placed her hands on the edge of the tub, and raised her bum just a trifle. “Let’s do it this way for a change,” I murmured, not inserting my cock immediately, but rubbing it up and down her crack from behind.
“You won’t come, will you?” she begged, craning her neck around and giving me a wild, imploring look through the mirror over the washstand. “I’m wide open. . . .”
That “wide open” brought out all the lust in me. “You bloody bitch,” says I to myself, “that’s just what I want. I’m going to piss in your palatial womb!” And with that I let it slip in slowly, grazing the pockets and lining of her wide-open cunt until I felt the mouth of her womb; there I wedged it good and solid, soldering it to her as if I intended to leave it in for good. “Oh, oh!” she groaned. “Don’t move, please . . . just hold it!” I held it all right, even when that rear end began revolving like a pinwheel.
“Can you still hold it?” she murmured huskily, trying again to look around and catching her reflection in the mirror.
“I can hold it,” I said, not making the slightest movement, knowing that that would encourage her to unleash all her tricks.
“It feels wonderful,” she said, her head falling limp, as if it had become unhinged. “You’re bigger now, do you know it? Is it tight enough for you? I’m terribly opened up.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “It fits marvelously. Listen, don’t move any more . . . just clutch it. . . you know how. . . .”
She tried but somehow it wouldn’t perform, her little lemon squeezer. I withdrew abruptly, without warning. “Let’s lie down . . . here,” I said, pulling her away and placing a dry towel under her. My cock was glistening with juice and hard as a pole. It hardly seemed to be a prick any more; it wa
s like an instrument I had attached, an erection made flesh. She lay prone, looking at it with terror and joy, wondering what next it might think to do—yes, quite as if it were deciding things and not me or her.
“It’s cruel of me to keep you,” she said, as I socked it in swiftly. The suction created a smacking sound, like wet farts.
“Jesus, now I’m going to fuck you good and proper. Don’t worry, I won’t come . . . I haven’t got a drop left. Move all you want. . . jerk it up and down . . . that’s it, rub it around, go on, do it. . . fuck your guts out!”
“Shhh!” she whispered, putting her hand to my mouth. I bent forward and bit into her neck, long and deep; I bit her ears, her lips. I pulled out again for one tantalizing second, and bit the hair over her cunt, caught the two little lips up and slid them between my teeth.
“Put it in, put it in!” she begged, her lips slavering, her hand reaching for my prick and placing it back in again. “Oh God, I’m going to come . . . I can’t hold it any more. Oh, oh . . .”—and she went into a spasm, slapping it up against me with such fury, such abandon, that she looked like a crazed animal. I pulled out without coming, my prick shiny, glistening, straight as a ramrod. Slowly she rose to her feet. Insisted on washing it for me, patted it admiringly, tenderly, as if it had been found tried and true. “You must run,” she said, holding my prick between her two hands, the towel wrapped around it. And then, dropping the towel and looking away—“I hope she’s all right. Tell her so, will you?”