Wilt looked round the room at the mess and shook his head. ‘Looks as though he’s making up for a lost childhood,’ he said.
‘Oh, Henry, you’re so perceptive,’ said Sally, and unscrewed the top of the Vodka bottle.
‘I’m not. It’s just bloody obvious.’
‘Oh you are. You’re just terribly modest, is all. Modest and shy and manly.’ She swigged from the bottle and gave it to Wilt. He took a mouthful inadvisedly and had trouble swallowing it. Sally locked the door and sat down on the bed. She reached up a hand and pulled Wilt towards her.
‘Screw me, Henry baby,’ she said and lifted her skirt, ‘fuck me, honey. Screw the pants off me.’
‘That,’ said Wilt, ‘would be a bit difficult.’
‘Oh. Why?’
‘Well for one thing you don’t appear to be wearing any and anyway why should I?’
‘You want a reason? A reason for screwing?’
‘Yes,’ said Wilt. ‘Yes I do.’
‘Reason’s treason. Feel free.’ She pulled him down and kissed him. Wilt didn’t feel at all free. ‘Don’t be shy, baby.’
‘Shy?’ said Wilt lurching to one side. ‘Me shy?’
‘Sure you’re shy. OK, you’re small. Eva told me…’
‘Small? What do you mean I’m small?’ shouted Wilt furiously.
Sally smiled up at him. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Just you and me and…’
‘It bloody well does matter,’ snarled Wilt. ‘My wife said I was small. I’ll soon show the silly bitch who’s small. I’ll show…’
‘Show me, Henry baby, show me. I like them small. Prick to the quick.’
‘It’s not true,’ Wilt mumbled.
‘Prove it, lover,’ said Sally squirming against him.
‘I won’t,’ said Wilt, and stood up.
Sally stopped squirming and looked at him. ‘You’re just afraid,’ she said. ‘You’re afraid to be free.’
‘Free? Free?’ shouted Wilt, trying to open the door, ‘Locked in a room with another man’s wife is freedom? You’ve got be joking.’
Sally pulled down her skirt and sat up.
‘You won’t?’
‘No,’ said Wilt.
‘Are you a bondage baby? You can tell me. I’m used bondage babies. Gaskell is real…’
‘Certainly not,’ said Wilt. ‘I don’t care what Gaskell is.’
‘You want a blow job, is that it? You want for me to give you a blow job? She got off the bed and came towards him. Wilt looked at her wildly.
‘Don’t you touch me,’ he shouted, his mind alive with images of burning paint. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’
Sally stopped and stared at him. She wasn’t smiling any more.
‘Why not? Because you’re small? Is that why?’
Wilt hacked against the door.
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Because you haven’t the courage of your instincts? Because yours a psychic virgin? Because you’re not a man? Because you can’t take a woman who thinks?’
‘Thinks?’ yelled Wilt, stung into action by the accusation that he wasn’t a man. ‘Thinks? You think? You know something? I’d rather have it off with that plastic mechanical do than you. It’s got more sex appeal in its little finger than you have in your whole rotten body. When I want a whore I’ll buy one.’
‘Why you little shit’ said Sally, and lunged at him. Wilt scuttled sideways and collided with the punchbag. The next moment he had stepped on a model engine and was hurtling across the room. As he slumped down the wall on to the floor Sally picked up the doll and leant over him.
In the kitchen Eva had finished the fruit salad and had made coffee. It was a lovely party. Mr Osewa had told her all about his job as underdevelopment officer in Cultural Affairs to UNESCO and how rewarding he found it. She had been kissed twice on the back of the neck by Dr Scheimacher in passing and the man in the Irish Cheese loincloth had pressed himself against her rather more firmly than was absolutely necessary to reach the tomato ketchup. And all around her terribly clever people were being so outspoken. It was all so sophisticated. She helped herself to another drink and looked around for Henry. He was nowhere to be seen.
‘Have you seen Henry?’ she asked when Sally came into the kitchen holding a bottle of Vodka and looking rather flushed.
‘The last I saw of him he was setting with some dolly bird,’ said Sally, helping herself to a spoonful of fruit salad. ‘Oh, Eva darling, you’re absolutely Cordon Bleu baby.’ Eva blushed.
‘I do hope he’s enjoying himself, Henry’s not awfully good at parties.’
‘Eva baby, be honest. Henry’s not awfully good period.’
‘It’s just that he…’ Eva began but Sally kissed her.
‘You’re far too good for him,’ she said. ‘we’ve got to find you someone really beautiful.’ While Eva sipped her drink, Sally found a young man with a frond of hair falling across his forehead who was lying on a couch with a girl, smoking and staring at the ceiling.
‘Christopher precious,’ she said, ‘I’m going to steal you for a moment. I want you to do someone for me. Go into the kitchen and sweeten the woman with the boobies and the awful yellow pyjamas.’
‘Oh God. Why me?’
‘My sweet, you know you’re utterly irresistible. But the sexiest. For me, baby, for me.’
Christopher got off the couch and went into the kitchen Sally stretched out beside the girl.
‘Christopher is a dreamboy,’ she said.
‘He’s a gigolo.’ said the girl. ‘A male prostitute.’
‘Darling,’ said Sally, ‘it’s about time we women had them.’
In the kitchen Eva stopped pouring coffee. She was feeling delightfully tipsy.
‘You mustn’t.’ she said hastily.
‘Why not?’
‘I’m married.’
‘I like it. I like it.’
‘Yes but…’
‘No buts, lover.’
‘Oh.’
Upstairs in the toy room Wilt, recovering slowly from the combined assaults on his system of Pringsheim Punch, Vodka, his nymphomaniac hostess and the corner of the cupboard against which he had fallen, had the feeling that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t simply that the room was oscillating, that he had a lump on the back of his head or that he was naked. It was rather the sensation that something with all the less attractive qualities of a mousetrap, or a vice, or starving clam, had attached itself implacably to what he, had up till now always considered to be the most private of parts. Wilt opened his eyes and found himself staring into smiling if slightly swollen face. He shut his eyes again, hope against hope, opened them again, found the face still there and made an effort to sit up.
It was an unwise move. Judy, the plastic doll, inflated beyond her normal pressure, resisted. With a squawk Wilt fell back on to the floor. Judy followed. Her nose bounced on his face and her breasts on his chest. With a curse Wilt rolled onto his side and considered the problem. Sitting up was out of the question. That way led to castration. He would have to try something else. He rolled the doll over further and climb on top only to decide that his weight on it was increasing pressure on what remained of his penis and that if he wanted to get gangrene that was the way to go about getting it. Wilt rolled off precipitately and groped for a valve. There must be one somewhere if he could only find it. But if there was a valve it was well hidden and by the feel of things he hadn’t got time to waste finding it. He felt round on the floor for something to use as a dagger, something sharp, and finally broke off a piece of railway track and plunged it into his assailant’s back. There was a squeak of plastic but Judy’s swollen smile remained unchanged and her unwanted attentions as implacable as ever. Again and again he stabbed her but to no avail. Wilt dropped his makeshift dagger and considered other means. He was getting frantic, conscious of a new threat. It was no longer that he was the subject of her high air pressure. His own internal pressures were mounting. The Pringsheim Punch and the vodka were making their presence felt. With a desperate thought that if he didn’t get out of her soon he would burst, Wilt seized Judy’s head, bent it sideways and sank his teeth into her neck. Or would have had her pounds per square inch permitted. Instead he bounced off and spent the next two minutes trying to find his false tooth which had been dislodged in the exchange.