a second role. The tall, gaunt Mr. Thornton arrived, dispensing tiny hors d'oeuvres, crackers with minute pearl-like deposits on them like fish eggs waiting to be fertilized. Each of my three colleagues mechanically took one, Jake downing his in a swallow, Dr. Mann briefly holding his under his nose and then chewing it for the next ten minutes and Dr. Krum taking an intense experimental bite, like a chicken pecking at seed.
`Dr. Rhinehart?'
Mr. Thornton asked, holding the silver tray and its obscene deposits up toward my chest where I could see it.
`Ununununun,' I vibrated noisily, my lower lip hanging sloppily and my eyes attempting an animal vacancy. With my
huge right paw I swept up and clutched six or seven crackers, almost upsetting the tray, and stuffed them into my
mouth, pieces falling in a splendid dry waterfall down my shirtfront to the floor.
A flicker of human surprise crossed for a millisecond the erased face of Mr. Thornton as he looked into my vacant
gaze and watched me chew ineptly, a bit of moist semi-chewed cracker dangling briefly from my lip before falling
forever to the deep brown rug below.
`Unununun,' I vibrated again.
'Thank you, sir,' said Mr. Thornton and turned to the ladies.
Dr. Krum was emphatically stabbing the air in front of Dr. Mann's stomach as if performing some magic rite before
making an incision.
`Proof! Proof! They do not know the meaning of the verd. They raise money with bribes, they are bankers, barbarians,
businessmen, beasts, they-'
`Shit, who cares?' interrupted Jake. `If they want to get rich and famous, let 'em. We're doing the real work.'
He squinted at me; or was it a wink? `That is true. That is true. Scientists like us and businessmen like them have
nutting in common.'
'un unun,' I said, looking at Dr. Krum, my mouth half open like a fish gasping wide-eyed on the deck of a ship. Dr.
Krum looked up at me seriously and respectfully and then stroked his beard three, four times.
`There are two classes of men: the creators and the - how you say - drudges. Is possible to tell immejetly creators.
Immejetly, drudges.'
`Ununununun.'
`I do not know your verk, Dr. Rhinehart, but from the moment you speak to me, I know, I know.'
`Unnh.'
`Dr. Rhinehart has the brains all right,' Dr. Mann said. `But he's got a writing block. He prefers to play games. He
expects every article to surpass Freud.'
`He ought, he ought. Is good to surpass Freud.'
`Luke's got a book in the works about sadism,' said Jake, `which may make Stekel and Reich read like Grandma
Moses.'
It was a wink.
They all three looked up expectantly at me. I continued to stare vacant-eyed, mouth agape, at Dr. Krum. There was a
silence.
`Yes, yes. Is interesting, sadism,' Dr. Krum said, and his face twitched.
`Unnnnnnnh,' I vibrated, but steadier.
Jake and Dr. Krum looked at me hopefully while Dr. Mann took a graceful sip of his wine.
`You have been verking lung on sadism?'
I stared back at him.
Dr. Mann suddenly excused himself and went to greet three more arrivals at the party, and Arlene took Jake's arm and
whispered something in his ear. He turned reluctantly to talk to her. Dr. Krum was still looking at me. I was only half
conscious of the conversation; I was focused on the crumb in his beard.
`Unununun,' I said. It was a little like a faulty transformer.
`Vunderful - I thought myself of experimenting with sadism in chickens, but is rare. Is rare.'
Dr. Mann returned with two other people, a man and a woman, and introduced them to us. One was Fred Boyd, a
young psychologist from Harvard I knew and liked, and the other was his date, a plump, pleasant blonde with a cream-
smooth complexion - a Miss Welish. She reached out her hand when she was introduced to me, and when I failed to
grasp it, she blushed.
Looking at her I said: `Ununununun.'
She blushed again.
`Hi, Luke, how's it going?' asked Fred Boyd. I turned to him blankly.
`How did Herder do with his grant application to Stonewall?' Dr. Mann asked Fred.
Not so good,' Fred answered. `They wrote that their funds are tied up this year and '
`Is that the Dr. Krum?' a voice asked at my elbow.
I looked down at Miss Welish and then over at Dr. Krum. The crumb was still in his beard, although better hidden
now.
'Blnnh,' I asked.
'Fred thinks so too,' Miss Welish said and she turned us aside from the other conversation. `He says one reason he
admires you is that you don't stand for any nonsense.'
Impulsively I lifted one great paw and dangled it loosely over her shoulder. She was wearing a silver, high-necked dress and the shimmering scales were rough against my wrist. `I beg your pardon,' she said, and when she backed away my paw slid down over a breast and swung briefly like a
pendulum at my side.
She blushed and glanced quickly at the three men talking nearby.
`Fred says that Dr. Krum is very good at what he does, but that what he does isn't really important. What do you think?
'
`Unn,' I said loudly and stamped one giant foot.
`Oh me too. I don't like animal experimenters myself. I've been doing social work in Staten Island now for two years
and there's so much to be done with people.'
She looked now over at the couch where Dr. Felloni, the elderly lady and the thin old big deal were talking: Miss
Welish seemed to be relaxing in my company.
`Even here, in this very room, there are people whose lives are unfulfilled, people who need help.'
I was silent, but a bit of drool escaped from my lower lip and begun its pilgrimage down my shirt front.
`Unless we can learn to relate to each other,' Miss Welish went on, `to be aware of each other, all the chicken cures in
the world won't help.'
I was staring at Arlene's balloons undulating in the light of the chandelier. A small orgasm of saliva spilled again from my lower lip. `What fascinates me about you psychiatrists is the way you hold yourselves in, remain detached. Don't you ever feel
the suffering you have to deal with?'
Miss Welish turned toward me again and grimaced at the sight of my tie and shirt front.
I began groping clumsily in my pocket for my watchcase with the die.
`Don't you feel the suffering?' Miss Welish repeated.
Pulling out the watchcase I let my head twitch three times sideways and grunted a single, 'Un.'
`Oh God, you men are so hard.'
I slowly raised my lower jaw; it ached from its drooped position. Running my tongue over my dry upper lip, I used
my handkerchief to wipe the saliva from my chest and turned my ryes full on Miss Welish.
`What time is it?' she asked.
`Time for us to stop playing word games and get down to business,' I said.
`I think so too. I can't stand cocktail-party chatter,' she looked pleased that we were at last going to be above it all.
`What's underneath that lovely dress?'
`You like it? Fred bought it for me at Ohrbach's. Don't you like the way it - glimmers?'
She gave the upper part of her body a little shake: her dress shimmered and her chubby arms vibrated.
`You're built, baby - Look, what's your first name?'
'Joya. It's corny, but I like it.'
`Joya. It's a beautiful name. You're beautiful. Your skin is incredibly smooth and creamy. I'd love to run my tongue
over it.'
I reached my hand up and caressed her cheek and then the back of her neck. She reddened again.
`I was born with it, I guess. My mother has a lovely complexion and Dad too. In fact, Dad-'
`Are your thighs and your belly and your breasts that same creamy white color?'
`Well. .. I guess they are. Except when I get a tan.'
`I'd love to be able to run my hands over your whole body.'
`It's nice. When I put suntan lotion on, it feels so smooth.'
I lowered my lids a little and tried to look sexy.