IDA VERLAINE

from “SEXUS”, by Henry Miller

  

From the very beginning, I disliked Ida, not because of her behavior towards Woodruff, but instinctively.

Ida in turn was uneasy in my presence. She didn’t quite know what to make of me. I never criticize her nor did I ever flatter her; I acted as though she were the wife of my friend, and nothing more. She wasn’t satisfied with such an attitude, naturally. She wanted to bring me under her spell, make me walk the tight-rope, as she had done with Woodruff and her other suitors. Oddly enough, I was never more immune to a woman’s charms. I just didn’t give a fuck for her, as a person, though I often wondered what she might be like a piece of fuck, so to speak.

I wondered about it in a detached way, but somehow it got across to her, got under her skin.

Sometimes, after passing the night at their home, she would complain aloud that she didn’t want to be left alone with me. Woodruff would be standing at the door, ready to go to work, and she pretending to be worried. I’d be lying in bed waiting for her to bring my breakfast. And Woodruff saying to her: “Don’t talk that way, Ida. He’s not going to harm you – I’d trust him with my life.”

Sometimes I’d burst out laughing and yell: “Don’t worry Ida. I’m not going to rape you. I’m impotent.”

“You impotent?” she’d scream  with pretended hysteria. “You’re not impotent. You’re a lecher.”

“Bring him his breakfast!” Woodruff would say, and off to work he’d go.

Se hated the thought of waiting on me in bed. She didn’t do it for her husband and she couldn’t see why she would do it for me. To take breakfast in bed was something I never did, except at Woodruff’s place. I did it expressly to annoy and humiliate her.

“Why don’t you get up and come to the table?” she would say.

“I can’t  - I’ve got an erection.”

“Oh, stop talking about that thing. Can’t you think of anything but sex?”

Her words implied that sex was horrible, nasty, simply odious to her, but her manner indicated quite the opposite. She was a lascivious bitch, frigid only because she had the heart of a whore. If I ran my hand up her leg when she put the tray on my lap she would say: “Are you satisfied? Take a good feel while you’re at it. I wish Bill could see you, see what a loyal friend he has.”

“Why don’t you tell him?” says I one day.

“He wouldn’t believe me, the simp. He’d think I was trying to make him jealous.”

I would ask her to prepare the bath for me. She would pretend to demur but she would do it just the same. One day, while I was seated in the tub soaping myself, I noticed that she had forgotten the towels. “Ida,” I called, “bring me sole towels!” She walked into the bathroom and handed me them. She had on a silk bathrobe and a pair of silk hose. As she stooped over the tub to put the towels in the rack her bathrobe slid open. I slid to my knees and buried my head in her muff. It happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to rebel, or even to pretend to rebel. In a moment I had her in the tub, stockings and all. I slipped the bathrobe off and threw it on the floor. I left the stockings on – it made her more lascivious looking, more the Cranach type. I lay back and pulled her on top of me. She was just like a bitch in heat, biting me all over, panting, gasping, wriggling like a worm on the hook. As we were drying ourselves she bent over and began nibbling at me prick. I sat on the edge of the tub and she kneeled at my feet gobbling it. After a while I made her stand up, bend over; then I let her have it from the rear. She had a small juicy cunt which fitted me like a glove. I bit the nape of her neck, the lobes of her ears, the sensitive spot on her shoulder, and as I pulled away I left the mark of my teeth on her beautiful white ass. Not a word spoken. When we had finished she went to her room and began dressing. I heard her humming softly to herself. I was quite amazed that she was capable of expressing her tenderness that way.

From that day on she only waited for Woodruff to go in order to throw herself on me.

“Aren’t you afraid he might come back unexpectedly and find you in bed with me?” I asked once.

“He wouldn’t believe his eyes. He’d think we were fooling.”

“He wouldn’t think we were fooling if he felt this,” and I gave her a jolt that made her gasp.

“God, if he only knew how to take me! He’s too eager. He takes it out like a broomstick and shoves it in before I had a chance to feel anything. I just lie there and let him work it off – it’s over in a jiffy. But with you I get hot before you even touch me. It’s because you don’t care, I suppose. You don’t really like me, do you?”

“I like this,” said I, giving her a stiff jab. “I like your cunt, Ida… it’s the best thing about you.”

“You dog.” She said. “I ought to hate you for that.”

“Why don’t you hate me, then?”

“Oh, don’t talk about it.” She murmured cuddling closer and working herself up to a lather. “Just keep it there and hold me tight. Here, bite my breast… not to hard… there, that’s it.” She reached for my hands and pressed my fingers into her crack.

“Go on, do it, do it!” she muttered, her eyes rolling, her breath coming short.

A little later, at lunch: “Do you have to run off now? Can’t you stay a little longer?”

“You want another crack at it, is that it?”

“Can’t you put it more delicately? God, if Bill ever heard you say that!”

I got up and pushed her chair back. I took her leg and swung it over the arm of the chair.

“You never wear any undies, do you? You’re a slut, do you know it?”

I pulled her dress up and made her sit that way while I finished my coffee.

“Play with it a bit while I finish this.”

“You’re filthy,” she said, but she did as I told her.

“Take your two fingers and open it up. I like the color of it. It’s like coral inside. Just like your ears. You say he’s got a terrific wang, Bill. I don’t know how he ever gets it in there.”  With this I reached for a candle on the dresser at my side an I handed it to her.

“Let’s see if you can get it all the way”.

She spread the other leg over the other arm of the chair and began to work it in. She was looking at herself intently, her lips parted as if on the verge of an orgasm. She began to move back and forth, then rolled her ass around. I pushed her chair back farther, got down on my knees, and watched.

“You can make me do anything, you dirty devil.”

“You like it, don’t you?”

She was on the point of coming off. I pulled the candle out and slipped three fingers inside her twat.

“Is it big enough for you?” She pulled my head close and bit my lips.

I stood up and unbuttoned my fly. In a jiffy she had it out and in her mouth. Gobble, gobble, like a hungry buzzard. I came in her mouth.

“God”, she said, choking and sputtering. “I never did that before”. She ran to the bathroom, as if she had swallowed poison.

I went inside and flung myself on the bed. I lit a cigarette and waited for her to join me. I knew it was going a long drawn-out affair.

She came back in the silk bathrobe, nothing underneath. “Take your things off,” she said, pulling back the covers and diving in. We lay there fondling each other, her cunt sopping wet.

“You smell wonderful,” I said. “What did you do?”

She pulled my hand away and put it to my nostrils.

“Not bad,” I said, “what is it?”

“Guess!”

She got up impulsively, went to the bathroom and came back with a small bottle of perfume. She spilt some into her hand and rubbed my genitals with it: then she sprinkled a few drops on the pubic hairs. It stung like fire. I grabbed the bottle and soused her with it all over, from head to foot. Then I began licking her arm-pits, chewed the hair over her cunt, and slid my tongue like a snake down the curve of her thighs. She bobbed up and down as if she were having convulsions. It went on like this until I had such an erection that even after I shot a wad into her it stayed up like a hammer. That excited her terribly. She wanted to try all sorts of positions and she did. She had several orgasms in succession and almost fainted in the process. I laid her on a small table and when she was on the verge of exploding I picked her up and walked around the room with her; then I took it out and made her walk on her hands, holding her by the thighs, letting it slip out now and then to excite her still more.

Her lips were chewed to a frazzle and she was full of marks, some green, some blue. I had a strange taste in my mouth, of fish glue and Chanel 976 ½. My cock looked like a bruiser rubber hose: it hung between my legs, extended an inch or two beyond its normal length and swollen beyond recognition. When I got to the street I felt weak in the knees. I went to the drug store and swallowed a couple of malted milks. A royal bit of fucking, thought I to myself, wondering how I’d act when I met Woodruff again.