The Pornographer Read Online Free PDF

field one could easily turn into the other; and, since there were not many young people here, there must have been few in the dancehall who at one time or another hadn’t been both, and early as it was in the evening, if we could scent past habits and tobacco and alcohol, in all the gathering staleness, there must be already, here or there, in some corners, the sharp smell of fresh blood on the evening’s first arrowheads.
    The redhead and I rose at the same time from the table which was immediately seized by the waiter for a large party of five or six couples who started to move vacant chairs away from half-filled tables.
    “I suppose we better be making a start,” the man smiled apologetically.
    “I suppose if we’re ever going to,” I smiled back in the same way as we allowed the tables to part us, making our separate ways towards the dance floor.
    Way had to be pushed through the men crowded in the entrance at the top of the short steps. The women stood away to the left of the bandstand, between the tables, some of them spilling onto the floor. It is not true that we meet our destiny in man or woman, it is those we meet who become our destiny. On the irreversible way, many who loved and married met in this cattle light.
    I went towards her, the light blue dress falling loosely on the shoulders, the dark hair pinned tightly back to show the clean, strong features. She seemed not to be with anyone, and she moved nervously in the first steps of the dance.
    “Did you come on your own?”
    “Judy was to come with me. She works in the office with me, but she got a sore throat at the last minute. And I had the tickets. So I said—to hell—I’ll come on my own,” she explained.
    “What sort of office do you work in?”
    “The bank, the Northern Bank. It’s boring but as my uncle used to say it’s secure, and you can’t beat security.”
    She was not as young as she’d looked in the light across the dance floor, there was grey in the dark hair, but she was, if anything, more handsome. The body was lean and strong against my hand.
    “And do you come here often?”
    “O boy, are you kidding? Some real weirdoes come to this place. The last person I was dancing with asked me if I slept with people.”
    “And what did you answer?”
    “I was too shocked to answer and then I was angry. And then he asked me again, quite brazen-faced. And when I didn’t answer he just walked off and left me standing in the middle of the dance floor.”
    “Not many people are young here,” I said.
    “I’m not young. I’m thirty-eight,” she answered as if she’d been challenged.
    “It wasn’t that kind of age I was thinking of,” I said.
    All around us on the maple the old youngsters danced. The stained skin did not show in the blue light, but paunches did, bald heads, white hair, tiredness. People do not grow old. Age happens to us, like collisions, that is all. And usually we drive on. We do not feel old or ridiculous as we pursue what we have always pursued. Tonight, as any night, if we could anchor ourselves in the ideal greasy warm wetness of the human fork, we’d be more than happy. We’d dream that we were flying.
    “What do you do?”
    “I write a bit,” I said.
    “What do you write?” she asked breathlessly.
    “Just for a syndicate,” I said cautiously. “It’s a sort of advertising.”
    “That’s funny,” she said. “I write too. It’s not much, but I write nearly a whole magazine, it’s called Waterways . It’s the magazine of the Amalgamated Waterways Association, old dears and buffs who meet twice a year. Walter—he’s my friend —he’s the editor, but he’s so lazy I wind up writing nearly the whole of every issue. You should see us the last two nights before we put it to bed—it’s a panic. Luckily, it only comes out every two months,” she was laughing and unaware that she was bumping some of the couples on the crowded floor.
    “Do they pay you for this?”
    “A little, but they