Boys and Girls Together Read Online Free PDF Page B

girl always was when she was asleep, and it was astonishing, it was just like the little girl, the bottom gone west with womanhood, wide and thick and whiter than the little girl’s, but the head almost no different at all, the same face, the same thoughtfulness, but now the mother opened her eyes to be both the little girl and the little girl’s mother, the eyes limpid, lewd and loving.
    â€˜Do you like it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Is it as good as ice cream?’
    â€˜Better.’
    â€˜Is it true what they say about the Japanese?’
    â€˜That was propaganda to make the soldiers hate them.’
    â€˜I don’t mean the war. I mean the wonderful thoughtfulness of them in such things.’
    â€˜I knew what you meant.’
    â€˜Isn’t it wonderful of the Japanese to be so thoughtful?’
    â€˜Don’t you mean experimental?’
    â€˜What’s that mean?’
    â€˜To experiment.’
    â€˜Well, isn’t it wonderful?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Didn’t you ever have a Japanese girl?’
    â€˜Yes, but she had to pretend to be Chinese because of the war.’
    â€˜Well, is it true?’
    â€˜She was born in California, it was just the once, I didn’t ask her.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean for you to
ask
her. Look at you,’ she laughed suddenly. ‘Does
this
make a fool of you, too?’ She pushed higher and laughed. ‘If you want it so badly, if you’ve got to have it again, if you’ve got to have more, have all you want.’
    â€˜You don’t have to put ideas in my head.’
    â€˜I’m not looking at your
head
. Your head’s for art and I don’t want any part of it. If you’ve always gotto have more, there’s always more to have, so why don’t you take all you want?’
    â€˜I want to read.’
    â€˜You don’t look as if you want to read.’ She laughed, moved the large round white slowly around, watching his eyes, and him.
    He got up, smiling with the surprise he had for her. She still didn’t know him. He watched her turn it slowly, her eyes watching him and waiting. She wanted to be quiet now, to let his thinking let her know how to be, and then she felt the sharp sting of his open hand. She screamed, felt it again, screamed again, laughing, leaped to her feet, and ran away. He caught her, and she felt it again, only harder. Again, laughing and calling him dog, and again, until she began to plead with him to stop, and then began to cry, hurt and wanting to hide, crying to herself. He lighted a cigarette and asked if she had been terribly surprised.
    â€˜You dog. You dirty crook, I thought you were going to be nice. You hurt me, you really hurt me, I’ll never get pregnant again from the way you hurt me, you hurt me everywhere, where I get pregnant even, you dirty dog, you’ll never have any more children from me, I thought you wanted to play, I thought you were going to be nice, I didn’t care about the first one or the second one but the others hurt me, you dirty dog.’
    â€˜Take it easy. You’ll wake up the kids.’
    â€˜Don’t talk to me any more.’
    She was mad now, not crying any more, just mad because he’d broken up the play that promised to be so wonderful. Mad because he had done such a thing when she had been having so much fun watching how it was making a fool of him again, done it on purpose, to make a fool of her.
    â€˜And don’t come near me.’
    The play was gone out of her voice. She was going now and going fast, because he’d broken it up.
    â€˜Don’t ever come near me again. I can be like other wives, too, you know.’
    â€˜Shut up.’
    â€˜And don’t you dare say shut up to me again.’
    â€˜Shut up.’
    The woman began to cry again, only this time it was the big beautiful baby bawling, bawling the way she had bawled when he had told her so long ago in New