The Gentle Degenerates (16 page)

All that came was me. I dragged the sperm up by sheer force of will, commanding it with the violent suction created in her cunt by my plunging in and out of her. She pushed back and took my bucking organ deep inside her, wriggling her ass so that the back of her pussy rubbed back and forth across the head of my cock as it spurted sperm into her. We froze like that for a long while, my pubis glued to her cunt and ass. And then, slowly, we sank onto the bed.

It was not long after that that she left. It was a chilly May day, and she was wearing the knit dress and white raincoat which had become a kind of costume for her. I remembered the first night I met her, when she was decked out like the Madwoman of Chaillot. She was so much wilder then, so much more actively crazy. In two short weeks, after the intensity of what we shared, she had become quieter, closer to herself. It was but a glimpse of the astounding woman she could be, once the fear and insecurity of being without a man to love left her. “I’m a very old-fashioned girl,” she had said a number of times. “I just want to get married and have babies and make a home.” And I believed that, for I have come to believe that unless a person is a true sanyassi, a wanderer, then a nest is necessary for sanity and survival, and the nest must be an organic unit in harmony with the countryside in which it is placed.

Part of my sorrow at letting her go was based on the idea that if we stayed together, I could help her undergo the sea-change so necessary to bringing all her pain and repressed memories to the surface, and letting them be burned off by a hot sunlight. But that would be playing therapist, a game I enjoyed when I was younger, but was always hurt by. Human destiny must be allowed to evolve, and any tampering is the most serious act. I did not have the strength or resolution to undertake to shape her life. I wondered if she would quickly revert to the role she seemed to need to keep her self-esteem. Would she become the professional scatterbrain, with all her genuine gestures spoiled simply because she held on to them a few seconds after the impulse had died, giving her an air of coy affectation? I knew enough of life to know that the most trivial behavioral quirk can change the course of a person’s development and fortune, often even more so than major influences like education and breeding.

I walked downstairs with her. A taxi came. She asked me whether I had all the addresses she gave me. We would keep in touch. Perhaps San Francisco together in the fall. . . .

I watched the back of the taxi until it was lost in distance and traffic. Then I went back upstairs, where the emptiness of the house assailed me. She was gone. I had accomplished what I wanted and felt like a successful engineer. But with the craziness, uncertainty, and fear, I had thrown out the warmth, the melting, the joy. I had disposed of a human being from my life. It is the kind of thing we have come to do casually with acquaintances and one-night lovers. And yet, and yet. . . as precious as I.

I went into the bedroom; the sheets were still rumpled and stained with our secretions. She was gone. I lay on the bed and felt the awful absence of her. A great burning began in my chest, and my limbs grew heavy. I felt like a lost child, and my lips trembled, and out of my pain-filled eyes I cried and I cried, weeping for all the loss that every human being is condemned to suffer in this brief stretch of breathing on this lovely, and dying, planet.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1993 by Marco Vassi

ISBN 978-1-4976-3275-2

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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