“Exactly not like an eclair!” Bunny smiled a white, white smile. “You do know!”
“He isn’t in the yard.” Kid leaned out onto the porch, then pulled back.
“I didn’t see him with any of those boys on the front steps,” Bunny said. “And he wasn’t in the kitchen or the front room.”
“Let’s try in here.” Kid pushed open the door.
Among the sleeping scorpions (Dollar had turned over on his stomach) Pepper, curled on his side in a pile of blankets, hanks of chain over his bony shoulders, fists thrust into the groin of his jeans, slept and hissed through the limp hair across his face.
“He always sleeps like that,” Bunny said quietly.
“You want to wake him up and—?”
“No!” Bunny whispered, and raised a wrist before pursed lips. “No…I just wanted to, well…you know.” Bunny’s smile was worked through with concern. “That’s fine. Really. Just to know he’s all right. That’s all I wanted. One has to be responsible for them, but in ways…in ways they can understand.” Bunny’s head shook. “And understanding, as I’m sure you know, is not Pepper’s strong point. Come, come. There’s no need to wake anyone.” Black Spider had rolled over and raised his head.
At Bunny’s gesture, Kid closed the door.
“Thank you, thank you. A million times, thank you. I’ve got to run along to greet my audience with—” Bunny thrust out a hip and closed an eye—“the real thing. You’re a perfect love. Ta-ta!” Halfway up the hall Bunny turned back and flung out one hand while the other wound among the optic beads. “And have a fabulous time at your party. You were too good to ask me. Thank you, thank you. You really are too good. Drink a glass of champagne for old Bun-buns, and remember, whatever happens, give ’em hell!”
California and Revelation had stopped to stare. Lady of Spain came out of the front room behind them, leaned on their shoulders, and grinned.
Bunny blew all three kisses, fled to the front door, opened it, turned, sang out, with flourishing arms: “‘The shadow of your smile…’” in an astonishing bass; then shrilled, “Bye-bye!” and was gone.
Pondering, Kid went back to the loft.
Seated Raven had a loop of wire and two screws in his mouth. “Who was that?” he asked, voice mangled by metal.
Kid just laughed and climbed up the post. “God damn,” he said. “Couldn’t you wait for five minutes to get started?”
Denny, naked, lay on top. Lanya still wore her blouse.
“We haven’t started very seriously,” Lanya said around Denny’s forearm.
“Yeah?” Kid climbed up and pushed his hand between their hips (Denny rocked up, Lanya pulled down). “Oh; yeah.” He took off his vest.
They made love, breathing softly with wide mouths. For a while, with his belt and pants open, Kid refused to take his pants off—
(“I’m sorry, Lady, you can’t go up there. Kid’s busy.”
(“He ballin’?”
(“Yeah. Come back later.”)
—but after a while they tickled him and, while he lay laughing, pulled them down. Huddled with their heads together, Denny whispered, “That was nice, huh? Lemme fuck you in the pussy and you can fuck me in the ass again while I’m doing it.”
“Marvelous,” Lanya said and buried her laughter on Kid’s shoulder.
“Sure,” Kid said. “If you want. Sure.”
But, with knees uncomfortably wide, elbows bent, and the boy’s dry back brushing his belly, Kid’s penis, pulling along the flexing crevice, lay limp. He started to say something, thought better, and kissed Denny’s shoulder, kissed him again.
Lanya opened her eyes and, through her catching and catching breath, frowned. She worked one hand free, and licked and licked her fingers. Then she reached around Denny’s back. First just the side of her thumb touched his cock. Then his movement in her fist’s tunnel made the thing that was not a muscle tighten (and whole webs above and around his pubis that were, relax). His penis filled through her grip.
“I like that…” Denny panted when Kid was inside him.
“It’s pretty good…” Kid got out, shifted his weight, and decided that Lanya had the right idea: Talking was silly. He didn’t come in Denny’s ass, but in hers.
They lay on their sides, Lanya sandwiched between.
“I can feel him,” Denny whispered, “Moving. Inside your cunt, on my dick, I can feel him.”
“So,” she whispered, “can I,” and Shhhhhed him. Both Kid’s hands were around her chest. Someone held his thumb. He thought it was her because she always used to, but it was Denny. Once he rose from half sleep to hear them giggling together. He shifted his fingers on the live warmth of her breast. Someone squeezed his thumb again.
He woke, suddenly and fully. They were both still. His cock was erect; but as he raised his head to look down at himself, he felt it soften. He had rolled slightly to the side. His penis lowered toward Lanya’s thigh.
It is not touching her, he thought.
Then, the slightest warmth. And pressure.
It is touching her.
Eyes wide, he rolled back, trying to understand by blunt reason that terrifying and marvelous transition.
I am limited, finite, and fixed. I am in terror of the infinity before me, having come through the one behind bringing no knowledge I can take on. I commend myself up to what is greater than I, and try to be good. That is wrestling with what I have been given. Do I rage at what I have not? (Is infinity some illusion generated by the way in which time is perceived?) I try to end this pride and rage and commend myself to what is there, instead of illusion. But the veil is the juncture of the perceived and perception. And what in life can rip that? Is the only prayer, then, to live steadily and dully, doing and doubting what the mind demands? I am limited, finite, and fixed. I rage for reasons, cry for pity. Do with me what way you will.
5
He woke…
As Kid sat, Denny’s hand fell from his. Lanya rolled back a little to press against him again.
Kid’s side cooled.
He thought of her side cooling.
He watched Denny, in sleep, rub his stomach where she had just lain. Kid’s pants were wedged against the wall. Hanging his feet over the edge, he shook out the rumpled legs. He lifted one knee and set his heel on the chain. What circled his mind, what had been running there since sleep, was: “…Susan Morgan, William Dhalgren, Peter Weldon…Susan Morgan, William Dhalgren, Peter Weldon…” Pondering, he shook it out.
He pushed his feet out the cuffs, got his boot, his vest, his chains, and swung around to the post and climbed down. Raven was gone.
He noticed the silence just as it ended with voices in the other rooms. He could not decide whether it had been a few coincident seconds, or a protracted hush, begun before his waking, ending. Restless, he walked into the hall.
And recognized her blue sweatshirt as she turned into the service porch. When he reached the door, she was going down the steps into the yard. He followed.
Halfway into evening, the sky above the littered and trampled dirt was without feature.
Angel, Filament, and Thruppence, under Copperhead’s supervision, were trying to start a fire.
Raven, Spider, D-t, and Jack the Ripper, with Tarzan the one white among them, sat on crates or stood at the back of the yard, passing two gallon jugs, both half empty, and arguing.
She looked up, saw him at the head of the steps, and (he thought) started. “Hi,” she said with a very puzzled look and brushed a feathering of hair back from her face.
“Hey.” He came down the steps.
She looked at his foot.
It had been a long time since he had even been around anyone who noticed his half-shod eccentricity. He thought about the coming party, found his mind rummaging again through Bunny’s tale of the afternoon, and pushed away the discomfort with laughter.
She looked more uncomfortable. “I just wanted to come over and say hello to some of the guys,” she explained. “I’m living over there, now,” indicated only with a turned head that turned right back. “You know that commune you guys used to hit up in the park? Well, some of the ones from there come over to our place a lot—our house is just girls—but anybody can come and visit.”