Three or four days later I found her note and phoned Debra. She said, “Come on over.” She gave me the directions to Playa del Rey and I drove over. She had a small rented house with a front yard. I drove into the front yard, got out of the car and knocked, then rang. It was one of those two-tone bells. Debra opened the door. She was as I remembered her, with enormous lipstick mouth, short hairdo, bright earrings, perfume, and almost always, that wide smile.

“Oh, come in, Henry!”

I did. There was a guy sitting there but he was obviously a homosexual so it wasn’t really an affront. “This is Larry, my neighbor. He lives in the house in back.”

We shook hands and I sat down.

“Is there anything to drink?” I asked.

“Oh, Henry!”

“I can go get something. I would have, only I didn’t know what you wanted.”

“Oh, I have something.”

Debra went into the kitchen.

“How are you doing?” I asked Larry.

“I haven’t been doing well, but I’m doing better. I’m into self-hypnosis. It’s done marvels for me.”

“Do you want anything to drink, Larry?” asked Debra from the kitchen.

“Oh no, thanks. . . .”

Debra came out with two glasses of red wine. Debra’s house was over-decorated. There was something everywhere. It was expensively cluttered and there seemed to be rock music coming from every direction out of little speakers.

“Larry’s practicing self-hypnosis.”

“He told me.”

“You don’t know how much better I’m sleeping, you don’t know how much better I’m relating,” Larry said.

“Do you think everybody should try it?” asked Debra.

“Well, that would be difficult to say. But I do know that it works for me.”

“I’m throwing a Halloween party, Henry. Everybody’s coming. Why don’t you join us? What do you think he could come as, Larry?”

They both looked at me.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Larry. “Really, I don’t know. Maybe? . . . oh, no... I don’t think so. . . .”

The doorbell bing-bonged and Debra went to open it. It was another homosexual without his shirt on. He had on a wolfs mask with a big rubber tongue hanging out of the mouth. He seemed testy and depressed.

“Vincent, this is Henry. Henry, this is Vincent. . . .”

Vincent ignored me. He just stood there with his rubber tongue. “I had a horrible day at work. I can’t stand it there anymore. I think I’ll quit.”

“But Vincent, what would you do?” Debra asked him.

“I don’t know. But I can do a lot of things. I don’t have to eat their shit!”

“You’re coming to the party, aren’t you Vincent?”

“Of course, I’ve been preparing for days.”

“Have you memorized your lines for the play?”

“Yes, but this time I think we should do the play before we do the games. Last time, before we got to the play we were all so smashed we didn’t do the play justice.”

“All right, Vincent, we’ll do it that way.”
With that, Vincent and his tongue turned and walked out the door.

Larry stood up. “Well, I must be going too. Nice meeting you,” he said to me.

“All right, Larry.”

We shook hands and Larry walked through the kitchen and out the back door to his place.

“Larry’s been a great help to me, he’s a good neighbor. I’m glad you were nice to him.” “He was all right. Hell, he was here before I was.”

“We don’t have sex.”

“Neither do we.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’ll go get us something to drink.”

“Henry, I have plenty of everything. I knew you were coming.”

Debra refilled our glasses. I looked at her. She was young, but she looked as if she was straight out of the 1930's. She wore a black skirt that came down halfway between her knee and ankle, black shoes with high heels, a white high-necked blouse, a necklace, earrings, bracelets, the lipstick mouth, plenty of rouge, perfume. She was well-built with nice breasts and buttocks and she swung them as she walked. She kept lighting cigarettes, there were lipstick-smeared butts everywhere. I felt sure I was back in my boyhood. She even didn’t wear pantyhose and now and then she tugged at her long stockings, showing just enough leg, just enough knee. She was the kind of girl that our fathers loved.

She told me about her business. It had something to do with court transcripts and lawyers. It drove her crazy but she was making a good living.

“Sometimes I get very snappish with my help, but then I get over it and they forgive me. You just don’t know what those goddamned lawyers are like! They want everything immediately, and they don’t think about the time it takes to do it.”

“Lawyers and doctors are the most overpaid, spoiled members of our society. Next in line is your corner garage mechanic. Then you might throw in your dentist.”

Debra crossed her legs and her skirt hiked up.

“You have very nice legs, Debra. And you know how to dress. You remind me of the girls in my mother’s day. That’s when women were women.”

“You’ve got a great line, Henry.”

“You know what I mean. It’s especially true of L. A. Once not long ago I left town and when I returned, do you know how I knew I was back?”

“Well, no. . . .”

“It was the first woman I passed on the street. She had on a skirt so short you saw the crotch of her panties. And through the front of the panties—pardon me—you could see her cunt hairs. I knew I was back in L.A.”

“Where were you? On Main Street?”

“Main Street, hell. It was Beverly and Fairfax.”

“Do you like the wine?”

“Yes, and I like your place. I might even move in here.” “My landlord’s jealous.”

“Anybody else who might be jealous?”

“No.” “Why?”

“I work hard and I just like to come home and relax in the evening. I like to decorate this place. My girlfriend—she works for me—and I are going to antique shops tomorrow morning. Do you want to come along?”

“Will I be here in the morning?”

Debra didn’t answer. She poured me another drink and sat beside me on the couch. I leaned over and kissed her. As I did I pulled her skirt further back and peeked at that nylon leg. It looked good. When we finished kissing she pulled her skirt down again, but I had already memorized the leg. She got up and went to the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush. Then there was a wait. She was probably applying more lipstick. I took out my hanky and wiped my mouth. The hanky came away smeared with red. I was finally getting everything the boys in high school had gotten, the rich pretty well-dressed golden boys with their new automobiles, and me with my sloppy old clothes and broken down bicycle.

Debra walked out. She sat down and lit a cigarette. “Let’s fuck,” I said.

Debra walked into the bedroom. There was a half a bottle of wine left on the coffee table. I poured myself a drink and lit one of her cigarettes. She turned off the rock music. That was nice.

It was quiet. I poured another drink. Maybe I would move in? Where would I put the typewriter? “Henry?”

“What?”

“Where are you?”

“Wait. I just want to finish this drink.” “All right.”

I finished the glass and then poured down what was left in the bottle. I was in Playa del Rey. I undressed, leaving my clothes in a messy pile on the couch. I had never been a dresser. My shirts were all faded and shrunken, 5 or 6 years old, threadbare. My pants the same. I hated department stores, I hated the clerks, they acted so superior, they seemed to know the secret of life, they had a confidence I didn’t possess. My shoes were always broken down and old, I disliked shoe stores too. I never purchased anything until it was completely unusable, and that included automobiles. It wasn’t a matter of thrift, I just couldn’t bear to be a buyer needing a seller, seller being so handsome and aloof and superior. Besides, it all took time, time when you could just be laying around and drinking.

I walked into the bedroom with just my shorts on. I was conscious of my white belly lolling out over the shorts. But I made no effort to suck in my gut. I stood by the side of the bed, lowered my shorts, stepped out of them. Suddenly I wanted more to drink. I climbed into the bed. I got under the covers. Then I turned toward Debra. I held her. We were pressed together. Her mouth was open. I kissed her. Her mouth was like a wet cunt. She was ready. I sensed it. There would be no need of foreplay. We kissed and her tongue flicked in and out of my mouth. I caught it between my teeth, held it. Then I rolled over on top of Debra and slid it in.

I think it was the way her head was turned away to one side as I fucked her. It turned me on. Her head was turned away and bounced on the pillow with each stroke. Now and then as I was stroking I turned her head toward me and kissed that blood– red mouth. It was finally working for me. I was fucking all the women and girls I had gazed longingly after on the sidewalks of Los Angeles in 1937, the last really bad year of the depression, when a piece of ass cost two bucks and nobody had any money (or hope) at all. I’d had to wait a long time for mine. I worked and pumped. I was having a red hot useless fuck! I grabbed Debra’s head once again, reached that lipstick mouth just one more time as I spurted into her, into her diaphragm.