The Alcoholics Read Online Free Page B

merrily.
    She took a folded hand-towel from her pocket-oh, yes, yes, she had come well-prepared-and placed it over his mouth. He tried to bite into it, but she knew exactly what to do about that. She gripped his nose between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed the nostrils shut. He began to smother.
    "That'll fixth you, you nathty thing!" Miss Baker whispered. "Thtupid, that's what you are! Lazy, bad, thtupid man! Don't even know your own name, do you?"
    She had to force herself to remove the gag, to take away her fingers. The sweet agony in her loins was racing to a climax, and in a few more seconds- oh, thweet heaven, just a few more!- she would… But she did not have those seconds. The mean, stupid thing was strangling.
    She looked down at him, all fairness now, her own pleasure merely a necessary potential of a job to be done.
    "Tell me your name," she whispered. "If you don't tell me your name, I'll have to…" She waited. She lowered the towel. She reached for his nose. "Very well. In that cathe, I have no choice but to…"
    The smothering began, again. Again Miss Baker's body trembled with a hot orgiastic tide. "T-tell me"-she panted: she was breathing for both of them-"Tell-me-your-name…" And the billion uncohered images of Van Twyne's subconscious hurled frenziedly against themselves; they struggled upward, seeking a new exit for the one that was strangely absent. They broke through into nothingness, into a patterniess uncharted void: just as the exit had been missing, so now was the pattern. Unguided, unrelated, each struggled and shrieked for command; and yet, gradually, a kind of order-a kind of super-chaos-emerged from the chaos…
    "Name?" He tried, the images coming from way, way back. Huh-huh huh-huhwhoooah …
    "Name?" Name, things, words. And his mind sweating. Huh-huh-huh-c-a-t, man. C-A-T, Man?
    "Name?" A rush, a void, a meaningful meaninglessness. Huh-huh-huh, sugar, honey, darling, dear, mama's little mannowilayme goddamlilsnob on, daddy DADDY? what you do to me I said so didn't I well who the hell are you think because you're assdeep in dough you can .
    "Name?" Everything, everything he ever remembered, mixed up with all the nothing.
    Multiply the diameter times pi which gives us well how would you have it if we are to employ the Socratic method the world according to weighs six sextillion four hundred and fifty quintillion short tons and youcanhaveit brother and if we are to believe the theory of Malthus you'd better talk fast YOU'D BETTER TALK FAST!
    "Name?" The name didn't matter, but something else did. Hum phayin humpty-dumpty Hum phvantwythird. HUMPHREY VAN TWYNE Thir sure, sure you are and I'm Henry the Eighth I'm Mr. God and this is my oldest boy Jesus now let's be reasonable, sergeant, I'm really if I can make a telephone call .
    "Name?" It was hot and he had to do something.
    Nownownow NOW GET WISE HUMPY BOY. You want to hang onto your machinery, what there is left of it? Well, you'd better start popping off, then, and I'm crapping you negative. You want to leave with
    Balls?
    Still sore aren't they? That little bitch.
    BALLS?
    Remember them, all right, don't you? And why not? Ha, ha. How could you forget?
    Miss Baker's small body was limp. The fever was gone from her eyes, and her breathing was regular. The sheets were bound tight, terribly tight. Tired but happy, she turned away from the table; stooped to remove the doorstop. And then it happened.
    "Balls!" shrieked Humphrey Van Twyne III. "Balls, balls, BALLS! "
    Miss Baker jumped, bumping her head against the edge of the door. She whirled, panic-stricken, and took a few steps toward the table. She ran toward the door again. What-how could he? He was mean, nasty and they'd get her and she hadn't done a thing, only tried to-.
    He shrieked and kept shrieking, that one terrible word. Shrieked, deafeningly, as though he would never stop.
    She snatched up the doorstop, squeezed through the slowly closing door, and ran madly down the hall.