Barbary Shore Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    “No … Well, maybe you don’t, m’bucko. Maybe youdon’t. You’re not the type, I expect,” McLeod said cryptically. “More like you to drift,” and he was silent for a long time afterward.
    Such conversations were hardly soothing. I would leave him to spend troubled hours by myself while the questions he had asked so easily went wandering for an answer. There were times when I shunned his company.
    And days after I moved in, I found myself still thinking of Guinevere. She would be so fine for me. Her hips waggled in invitation; she was obtainable. In retrospect I understood that I had gone to visit McLeod the first time with some idea of learning about her casually. Guinevere’s name, through lack of opportunity, had not been mentioned, and now it was impossible. No matter how flatly I might inquire about her, McLeod would be certain to appreciate the reason for my curiosity.
    By shifts I did my work, went for long walks through the hot streets of Brooklyn, and apportioned the sixteen dollars a week I allowed myself for meals in a lunchroom, a few drinks, and a movie. It was quiet, it was lonesome, and the last evenings of spring I tasted vicariously, watching the young lovers parade the streets of the vast suburban mangle which extends beyond the border of Brooklyn Heights to the dirt, the popcorn underfoot, and the quick sordid gaiety of Coney Island, sweet and transient, soon to be swept away in the terrible and superheated nights of midsummer.

FOUR
    A FTER a week Mrs. Guinevere came to the room with a change of linen. Once again she was dressed uniquely. Although it was nine o’clock in the evening, she wore a nightgown over some underclothing whose complex network of straps could be seen upon her shoulders. This ensemble of slips, girdles, gowns and bands was covered by a short flowered bathrobe open at the throat to exhibit her impressive breast.
    “Oh … hello,” I said, and found it difficult to add anything. I was too absorbed in what I had been writing to make the transition smoothly. “I guess I owe you four dollars,” I managed to say.
    “Yeah.” Guinevere seemed uninterested in the money.
    I rummaged through my bureau drawer, came up with my wallet, and paid her. In the meantime she had stripped my bed and tossed a fresh sheet and towel upon it. When she finished, she sighed loudly and purposefully.
    “How’re things going?” I asked.
    “So-so.”
    This would hardly do. “You look tired,” I said intimately. “Sit down.”
    Guinevere glanced at the pile of folded sheets upon her arm and shrugged. “All right, maybe I will,” she said, “seeing asthe doors open.” The sentence was invested with a wealth of vulgar gentility.
    Perched beside me on the bed, she sighed again. I lit a cigarette and discovered that my hands were not at all steady. I was very aware of her.
    “How about letting me have one?” she asked.
    Inwardly, I was shaking. I did something she must have found surprising. I picked up the pack and the matches, and placed them in her lap although we were sitting not a foot apart. She opened her large blue eyes then, glanced at me, and waved the match to the tobacco. I had no idea what we would talk about.
    Guinevere solved that for me. “What a terrible day I’ve had,” she sighed.
    “The linens?”
    “No.” She shook her head dramatically and stared at me. “No, I’ve been having trouble with my nerves.” Her lipstick, an experimental bluish pink, had been applied this once to conform to the real shape of her lips, and it made her look less attractive. “What’s the matter with your nerves?” I asked.
    She fingered a curl in her red hair. “I’m just too high-strung, that’s all.” Her eyes came to rest on my typewriter, and I have the idea that for the first time since she entered the room, she knew where she had seen me before. “You’re a writer, aren’t you?
    I nodded, and she said what I expected her to say. “You know, I could be a