Copperhead squatted by them—to watch? But he leaned forward, said something. Glass slowed.
Risa said something I couldn’t hear, put her hand on Copperhead’s naked knee, raised her head a moment, said something else.
“God damn,” California said. “Them two been going at her four, five times. Each.”
Re-reading this, it occurs to me that the written words don’t let you know whether Copperhead meant Risa or Glass. His tone of voice did, though.
Copperhead stood up and walked toward us. “Oh, man!” He put his hand on the wall to balance while he tried three times to get his other foot back inside his pants. Perspiration shone among the freckles and red hairs inside his thigh. Then green cancas slid over them. He jerked his chin toward Glass and Risa. “That nigger can fuck!” His foot coming down, knocked D-t’s shoulder (Copperhead: “Hey—sorry!”) who looked up and said, “You ain’t doin’ so bad yourself,” and dropped his face back into his arm.
Copperhead grinned, pushed his works, glistening like wet leather, into his fly and buttoned the top button.
“You want something to drink?” California asked; he’d taken the jug from Dollar.
“No.” Copperhead rubbed the place between his beard and his thick, lower lip with the side of his forefinger. “But she does.”
“I think,” I said, “I am gonna get a piece.”
“Hey,” Copperhead said, “you better get some—before we kill her!” He shook his head. His beard was wet. “Go on.” Then he went out of the room.
I stepped across D-t and nearly tripped on a blanket tangled between two mattresses. California came over too; he stuck his forefinger in the lion’s brass mouth, wiggled it there, then suddenly grinned at me as though he’d made a joke. I just leaned against the wall to watch.
Once Glass threw up his head, face bright with sweat, teeth and eyes minstrel white. Risa’s head and shoulders shook like somebody was hammering the soles of her feet. She kept saying, “Ughhhh…Ughhhh…Ughhhh…” and sometimes closing her mouth. Glass’s face slapped down and hid her unfocused blinks.
I squatted by the wall.
Glass’s hips, smacking hers, made her thighs shake.
I got my hand under my belt to pull my dick over; it rubbed hard on a seam or something, which hurt.
Glass threw back his head again, pushed himself up on his hands, his ass going. Risa’s hands bounced on his shoulders. She grabbed air, she slapped the mattress; then she hung on his neck. The heel of one foot dug the ticking, her toes wide, then curling down on their dark knuckles.
She was making a sound for all the world like flannel torn near the ear. Glass finished.
I guess she didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t.
Still up on his hands, his head dropped. She kept pulling at his shoulders. He took a loud breath and sat back on his knees. “Oh, shit…”
Risa dropped her hands between her legs.
I got up and stood just behind Glass. When Risa’s knees went down, her foot slid by my boot. She rubbed her ankle back and forth on mine through the soft leather. Glass stood, unsteadily, so I gave him a hand. He held my arm with one hand, tried to pull his pants up with the other, and said: “Go on, man. Fuck that pussy. Yeah! Shit…” He looked very dazed and not quite at me.
I opened my fly.
Risa looked pretty dazed too.
Her breasts rolled on her ribs as she rocked. I had to bend my knees to get my crank out. She reached to scratch her hip; then her hand forgot what it was doing, touching her stomach all over; she was looking all around the room, moving just her narrowed eyes. I put my bare foot on her cunt. She rocked her hips till I pressed hard; then she held my dirty ankle and rubbed her hair on the callused ball. The arched bone there slid around under its wet skin. What had leaked into the hair under my instep felt thick as clay slip. She opened and closed and opened her mouth, but breathing, loudly, through her nose. And her eyes were still moving around without fixing anything. A drop of water rolled sideways down her jaw.
I took my foot away.
She began to pull at herself, digging two fingers in, to open and close a raw canyon; she blew out her mouth, all her lips sticking and pulling apart.
(Did I think: Who am I standing here with a hard-on for? Me, her, or them? No, I didn’t.) I opened my belt and kneeled down. She got an expression almost a smile and swung it all around her, head rolling; and still pulling. Christ.
I went forward. Holding myself up on one hand, I caught one of hers and got it down on my dick. (Lanya once told me lots of guys get up tight if a girl tries to touch their dick when they’re putting it in; it turns me on.)
I remember I opened my eyes once and saw her brown neck stretching as her head turned away, then wrinkling as her ear hit mine, hard. She was pushing at my pants to get the belt buckle out of the way, I realized. Then she grabbed hold. I fantasized about eating her, some. And her blowing Dollar, for some reason; I remember thinking this was freaky enough that I shouldn’t have to fantasize at all. At which point, without loosening her legs on my hips or her arms over my shoulders, she screamed. Loud. It scared me to death. I thought: There goes my hard. It didn’t—but that was the first time I thought about the rest of the people in the room. Somebody was standing near us; because I could see his sneaker right in front of my face. When she began to drag air back into her chest, with some wet sound in her mouth (which, hunting for mine, finally caught it—I tried to lick her tonsils), I thought I was going to come. Only it took another minute and a half. When I come, sometimes, balling somebody I’m not too interested in (or having particularly uninteresting sex with somebody I am), I get some picture (or words) that stays a few seconds until it hazes to something hard to recall as a dream: This time, it was an image of myself, holding hands with someone (Lanya? Risa? Denny?) and running among leafless trees laced with moonlight while the person behind me kept repeating: “…Grendal, Grendal, Grendal…” which, while I rocked my face in her hot neck and the stinging in my thighs, chest, and belly went on, seemed very funny. (Specific and primitive?) I raised my face out of the moon-bright branches into a room lathered with the smell of smoke and scorpions. And grinning, man, like a tiger!
I sat back, dragging chains over her. She bit one, held it in her teeth so it tugged on my neck. I pulled, till it came out of her mouth, kneeled back, and bumped into someone—Dollar—who said: “Hey, man. Pretty good, huh?”
“Watch it,” California said, trying to crowd in. “Come on, huh?”
Copperhead, holding a gallon jug, stooped down beside Risa. Glass stood just behind his shoulder. Copperhead got one hand under her neck. She held onto the knee of his fatigues.
I stood up while California clambered over her ankles. “Hey, Copperhead? Man, she’s drunk enough already! She’s gonna be sick if you—”
“Get out of here,” Copperhead said. “This is water. She asked me for a fucking drink of water before, that’s all.”
“Oh.” California slid his hands up Risa’s legs. A tendon in her thigh shook. California bent.
“Aw, come on!” Glass said, and punched at California’s head. “Can’t you wait until she has a fuckin’ drink of water?” But Risa grabbed California’s hair, grunting, and pulled him down. Glass sucked in his breath and watched her drink till Copperhead lowered the jug. Water ran down Risa’s cheek. She got out, “…thank you…”
“You’re welcome,” California said, muffled in her crotch.
Which Copperhead must have thought was the funniest thing he ever heard. He just broke up. And spilled water all over the floor.
“You can take her in the mouth,” Dollar was saying to Fireball. “If you want, you can take her mouth and I’ll take her pussy. Or you can take her pussy and I’ll…”