Islands in the Stream полностью

“One night I had dinner with the girl and then we rode in a boat for a long time and that was wonderful but uncomfortable. She had skin that was wonderful to touch and all the preliminaries of making love made her very excited and her lips were thin but they were very heavy with love. Then we went from the boat to her house and the police dog was there and there was the problem of not waking anyone and finally I went to the hotel alone and I didn’t feel good about any of it and I was tired of arguing and I knew she was right but I thought what the hell is the use of being so damned emancipated if you can’t go to bed. I thought if we are going to be emancipated, let’s free the sheets. Anyway I was feeling gloomy and frustrado—”

“I’ve never seen you frustrado. You must be funny frustrado.”

“I’m not. I’m just mean and that night I felt mean and disgusted.”

“Go on with the story.”

“Well, I got my key at the desk very frustrado and the hell with everything. It was a very big and rich and richly gloomy hotel and I rode up in the elevator to what I knew was my big and rich and gloomy and lonely room and no beautiful tall Chinese girl in it. So I walked down the corridor and unlocked the massive door of my gigantic gloomy room and then I saw what was there.”

“What was it?”

“Three absolutely beautiful Chinese girls, so beautiful they made my beautiful Chinese girl that I couldn’t get to bed seem like a schoolteacher. They were so beautiful you couldn’t stand it and none of them spoke any English.”

“Where were they from?”

“One of my millionaires sent them. One of them had a note for me on very thick paper in a parchment envelope. All it said was, ‘Love from C.W.’ ”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t know their own customs so I shook hands with them and I kissed each one of them and then I told them that I thought the best way for all to get acquainted was to all take a shower.”

“How did you tell them?”

“In English.”

“Did they understand?”

“I made them understand correctly.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I was very embarrassed because I had never made love with three girls. Two girls is fun even though you do not like it. It’s not twice as good as one girl but it is different, and it is fun anyway when you are drunk. But three girls is a lot of girls and I was embarrassed. So I asked them if they wanted a drink and they didn’t. So I had a drink and we sat on the bed, which was fortunately, a very big bed, although they were all very small, and then I turned the lights out.”

“Was it fun?”

“It was wonderful. It was wonderful to be in bed with a Chinese girl who was just as smooth as the girl I knew, and much smoother, and who was both shy and shameless and not emancipated at all, and then multiply that by three, and have it in the dark. I had never held three girls in my arms before. But you can do it. They had been trained and they knew many things I did not know and it was all in the dark and I did not want ever to go to sleep. But I did finally and when I woke in the morning they were all asleep and as beautiful as they had looked when I first came in the room. They were the most beautiful girls I ever saw.”

“More beautiful than I was when you first knew me twenty-five years ago?”

“No, Lil. No puede ser. They were Chinese girls and you know how beautiful a Chinese girl can be. And I loved Chinese girls anyway.”

“No es pervertido.”

“No, it certainly isn’t a perversion.”

“But three.”

“Three is several. And love was made to be made with one, I grant you.”

“Anyway, I’m glad you had them. Don’t think I’m jealous. You didn’t seek it out and besides it was a present. I hate the police dog woman who wouldn’t go to bed. But, Tom, didn’t you feel hollow in the morning?”

“Of such hollowness you can’t imagine. Really hollow. And I felt debauched from the top of my head to between my toes and my back was dead and the root of my spine ached.”

“So you had a drink.”

“So I had a drink and I felt a little better and very happy.”

“So what did you do?”