Miss Lonelyhearts Read Online Free PDF

lovers think that you alone
suffer. But you are mistaken. Although my love is of the flesh flashy, I too
suffer. It's suffering that drives me into the arms of the Miss Farkises of this world. Yes, I suffer."
    Here the dead pan broke and pain
actually crept into his voice. "She's selfish. She's a damned selfish
bitch. She was a virgin when I married her and has been fighting ever since to
remain one. Sleeping with her is like sleeping with a knife in one's
groin."
    It was Miss Lonelyhearts '
turn to laugh. He put his face close to Shrike's and laughed as hard as he
could.
    Shrike tried to ignore him by
finishing as though the whole thing were a joke.
    "She claims that I raped her.
Can you imagine Willie Shrike, wee Willie Shrike, raping any one? I'm like you,
one of those grateful lovers."
    Mary came into the room in her
bathrobe. She leaned over Miss Lonelyhearts and said:
"Don't talk to that pig. Come with me and bring the whisky."
    As he followed her into the bedroom,
he heard Shrike slam the front door. She went into a large closet to dress. He
sat on the bed.
    "What did that swine say to
your
    "He said you were selfish,
Mary--sexually selfish."
    "Of all the
god-damned nerve. Do you know why he lets me go out with other men? To save money. He knows that I let them neck me and when I
get home all hot and bothered, why he climbs into my bed and begs for it. The cheap bastard!"
    She came out of the closet wearing a
black lace slip and began to fix her hair in front of the dressing table. Miss Lonelyhearts bent down to kiss the back of her neck.
    "Now, now," she said,
acting kittenish, "you'll muss me."
    He took a drink from the whisky
bottle, then made her a highball. When he brought it
to her, she gave him a kiss, a little peck of reward.
    "Where'll we eat?" she
asked. "Let's go where we can dance. I want to be gay."
    They took a cab to a place called El
Gaucho. When they entered, the orchestra was playing a Cuban rhumba . A waiter dressed as a South-American cowboy led
them to a table. Mary immediately went Spanish and her movements became
languorous and full of abandon.
    But the romantic atmosphere only
heightened his feeling of icy fatness. He tried to fight it by telling himself
that it was childish. What had happened to his great understanding heart?
Guitars, bright shawls, exotic foods, outlandish costumes--all these things
were part of the business of dreams. He had learned not to laugh at the
advertisements offering to teach writing, cartooning, engineering ,
to add inches to the biceps and to develop the bust. He should therefore
realize that the people who came to El Gaucho were the same as those who wanted
to write and live the life of an artist, wanted to be an engineer and wear
leather puttees, wanted to develop a grip that would impress the boss, wanted
to cushion Raoul's head on their swollen breasts.
They were the same people as those who wrote to Miss Lonelyhearts for help.
    But his irritation was too profound
for him to soothe it in this way. For the time being, dreams left him cold, no
matter how humble they were.
    "I like this place," Mary
said. "It's a little fakey , I know, but it's gay
and I so want to be gay."
    She thanked him by offering herself
in a series of formal, impersonal gestures. She was wearing a tight, shiny
dress that was like glass-covered steel and there was something cleanly
mechanical in her pantomime.
    "Why do you want to be
gay?"
    "Every one wants to be
gay--unless they're sick."
    Was he sick? In a great cold wave,
the readers of his column crashed over the music, over the bright shawls and
picturesque waiters, over her shining body. To save himself, he asked to see
the medal. Like a little girl helping an old man to cross the street, she
leaned over for him to look into the neck of her dress. But
before he had a chance to see anything, a waiter came up to the table.
    "The way to be gay is to make
other people gay," Miss Lonelyhearts said.
"Sleep with me and I'll be one gay