The Tides of Lust

by Samuel Delany

  He sat on the bed and began to take loud breaths. She moved between his legs to lay her head on his groin. He moved one finger over her forehead, wiping wet brass from beaded alabaster. She put her palm on it, pressed it on her cheek.

  “Why are you so tired,” he asked, “after so little?”

  She opened her eyes. “Gunner worried at me all morning, I say. Please, Captain. Let me go up and rest for a while. I’ll come back, maybe after only an hour or so.”

  “And leave me to make love to my fists? First the left, after that the right. What then? I can’t lap myself like Niger.”

  “You’ve had me every way! What else do you—”

  He squeezed her breast; Kirsten closed her eyes. “Oh, yes, I know the things you think of.” She looked up again. “Let me go upstairs. I’ll send Gunner down.”

  He frowned.

  “Finish with him. I’m too tired.”

  “He tired you out for me?” The captain tongued his lower lip. “Wake him up.”

  “I will. Right now.” She stood.

  She tried not to let him see her smile as she bent to pull her bunched shift down her hips. She shrugged into the sleeve, tried to cover her breast.

  The captain fingered himself.

  The torn cloth would not cover her any more.

  Suddenly Kirsten got a strange expression. She reached quickly, took his face in her hands and thrust her tongue way in his mouth. He licked it. But when he reached beneath her hem she pulled away.

  “I’ll send Gunner!”

  She turned and ran through the lines of sun.

  In the minute alone he thinks about the currents that have brought them here. He thinks about light, and suddenly he remembers the woman at the pane. He turns to look.

  “Captain?”

  Knuckling his eyes, sleepy Gunner came in. His hair, pale as his sister’s, pawed his neck, rioted at his forehead.

  “Come here.”

  The boy walked over the rug, paused. The captain patted the blanket, so the boy sat. He took the back of Gunner’s neck between thumb and forefinger. Shook him.

  Gunner grinned: there were twin acne spots left of his mouth. He touched the captain. “What am I gonna do with this elephant?”

  The captain moved his palm on the boy’s bony back. “You’ve done half of it already.” And shook again. “Hey, little mule. Kirsten says you tried to climb her back and break into her with your Johnny stick.”

  Gunner looked at his lap. The captain slipped two fingers into the buttonless fly. Gunner looked up. “I did not!” But grinned.

  “What did you do?”

  “I nosed her to see if I could smell anything you’d left there.” He touched the captain’s knee. Small hand: it has callouses from boat work, the nails quick bitten. His grin fell open into a smile. “Got my face wet. And she wouldn’t let go my head.”

  “Did she kiss you back between your legs?”

  “She wanted to. But I hid him in my hands.” Gunner pulled apart his fly. Johnny jumped. Little brass wires snarled through the captain’s fingers. Gunner frowned. “It’s not half as long as yours.”

  Maroon and purple: suede and velvet.

  “You’re not half as old as I am. He’s big enough for you, boy. You still need both hands to hide him when he’s hard. Hey, take care of me. A couple or three times.”

  Gunner picked the captain’s up.

  The captain pushed his fingers under Gunner’s rope belt. Most loops were broken. The waist pulled down on the boy’s buttocks. The captain lay his finger in the hot slip.

  “You want my mouth?” Gunner dug the black fruit up, “That’s why you wake me up?”

  “So.”

  “Suppose I’m not thirsty.”

  “You?”

  Gunner bent. The head rose and blunted on his mouth. Black hand grapples gold hair, pulls the boy up, gasping. “That’s not where I want it—”

  “Captain . . . ?”

  The black hand, kneading Gunner’s buttocks, worked to the boy’s belly. White and black fingers worked on the knot. As it came loose, he pushed the boy’s head forward. He swung his leg back and kicked. The boy fell on the small rug. Knot undone, his trousers slipped to his knees.

  The captain stood. He worked his thumb into the sweaty crevice siding his groin; swung like a crane. He stepped from the eight his pants made at his ankles.

  Brass ring in his left ear (leather banding his right wrist), the heavy black chain on his left ankle. (That’s all.) He stood above the boy.

  Gunner stared.

  The captain put his foot between the boy’s legs. The groin was hot on the knuckles of his toes. Toes rose to prod the crack. He got down on his knees.

  Gunner licked his fingers and wiped between his legs. “Lemme stick it up before—”

  The captain knocked Gunner’s hand away. “It’s slick enough.” He pushed, swiveled forward inches more, pushed straight again.

  Gunner stopped breathing.

  The captain put his arms around Gunner’s chest. Once the boy barked in pain. The captain slid his hand between their bellies. “You’re stiff as a ten penny. It doesn’t hurt that much.” His hips hunched.

  Gunner caught his breath again.

  But no sound. Backed and squirmed on it.

  The captain’s breath roared around his head like a rasp in a clay pipe: Gunner puppy-pants.

  Unable to the double weight, their arms bent. The captain pulled him onto the floor. On his side, first; then, with Gunner, breath nearly out of him, the captain flexed.

  He lay on his side, thrust in Gunner’s gut, while the boy, on his back, to the hips’ rocking, pulled at himself. Gunner’s head pressed back on the captain’s chest. His feet bunched the rug between the black knees. Raised himself. Lowered himself.

  Gas growled out around him. Something small gave before the plunging, became hot paste. The captain stirred in the tight tunnel. He had a mouth full of Gunner’s hair; he held the boy with one hand. Two fingers from the other in Gunner’s mouth, a tongue grazing their salt and horn.

  In a salt cave the thrower flames.

  The captain panted. “Five . . . for me, now.”

  Gunner’s fist still swung at his groin.

  The captain closed the boy’s fist in his to stop it. “Hold off unless you want to go again.”

  Gunner, still now, asked, “You messed in Kirsten all day. You still want to squeeze more out of these?” Sitting on the captain’s hips, he reached between both their legs and picked up the big sack.

  The captain laughed. He pushed Gunner’s cheeks. “Get up. Go on.”

  Making a face, the boy eased forward. Soft, it slapped the captain’s thigh. Gunner turned and scratched himself. “How many more you got?”

  The captain folded his arms behind his head. “Another couple.” He stretched. “Work me over.”

  The boy blinked.

  The captain raised his head. “Lick my foot. Come on, get that look off. I want to see you lick my foot. Last week I saw you lick at Niger behind the locker. You can with a dog, you can with my foot. Go on.”

  Gunner held the calloused rim, laid his cheek on it. The captain felt the lips tickle the instep. Tongue fell from the boy’s mouth; moved on the rough ball, found the trough before the toes; bladed between the big toe and the next, moved over the thick nail. Gunner took three toes in his mouth. The captain wriggled them, laughed. “Niger left his pile on the foredeck. I stepped in it before I came down here—don’t pull back. Clean it. Look at you. Look what that does to you. Look good for me, boy.” His knee bent, and the boy’s lips whispered on his ankle, wrapped the chain, stuck tongue in the links. Gunner’s fingers spread on his belly, moved jerkily to his tight yellow hair. The head, grey as a pale grape, pushed from its ivory cap.

  “Work, boy!” The captain pulled his foot back, kicked Gunner’s face. He laughed.

  Gunner’s knees struck the rug. He opened his mouth on the dark thigh. The captain caught the boy’s hair, yanked him
down.

  Claws on the passage steps—

  —Niger sprang through the door, vaulted on his hind legs, pawed the captain’s knee.

  “Black devil! Down!” Niger backed up, then dropped his black muzzle beside Gunner’s blond head in the dark fork. The captain’s lips parted. His back rose from the rug. On shoulders and heels he pushed into Gunner’s face. The boy put one arm around the dog’s neck. He looked up, once, mouth, cheek and chin wet.

  The captain rocked back and grabbed the hollow of his knees. Gunner’s face pushed; stroke, probe. Niger’s tongue rolled the captain’s sack over to hang on his belly.

  The captain bellowed, swung his legs down. His heels hit the floor. Niger and Gunner scampered.

  On his feet the captain lurched to the bunk, turned, and sat. His knees were wide. Saliva made his thighs dark mirrors. He gripped the shining tower to beat. Up to the paler ring. “Six coming . . .” the captain panted. “First one here gets it.”

  Niger and Gunner raced the floor. Niger leapt on the captain’s right knee, dug his snout beneath the loose bag. Gunner humped the left harder than the dog, fell to it.

  The captain beat the boy’s lips a half dozen strokes. Gunner held the edge of the bed and leaned back. He tongued under the foreflesh. It rammed over his tongue, bruised palates, hard and soft, prodded in the softer throat. “Take it. Eat that charred meat all up, you white . . . Yeah . . .” He pressed the boy’s head down, and down, ground upon the face while Niger nipped and nuzzled. “Here it . . . here . . .” he grunted at the ceiling. Heat swelled the shaft, stretched the boy’s mouth.

  The black crater, quiet the hour, erupts. Oceans boil. The captain sagged forward over Gunner’s back. “Six . . .”

  Gunner twisted under the captain’s belly. “Get off my head.”

  “Six, you little white squirrel!”

  Niger had pulled away, was lying on the rug. He worried something between his paws.

  The captain sat up. Gunner hung over his knees. His face was wet. “What about seven?” Gunner asked.

  “Give it a rest.”

  Gunner picked up the limp. “It’s tired, now, you think?”

  The captain roughed the boy’s hair. “You’d lap after it whatever.” He frowned at the dog. “What’s Niger got?”

  Gunner looked over his shoulder. “Something he must have picked up when he went out.”

  “Go get it.”

  Gunner went to the dog. He pulled and played it away. The jaws gave up; Niger started to lick at Gunner. “He’s getting me all hard again.” He pushed Niger’s head down. “It’s a wallet.” He took it to the captain and sat down on the bed. While the captain paged through the leather folder, Gunner tugged up his pants and tried to get the rope back through the functioning loops. Once he leaned over the captain’s arm. “Pictures?”

  The captain was looking at the portal.

  “Hey?” Gunner said. “What about seven?”

  The captain pushed the boy’s hand from his thigh. Gunner put his hand between his own legs. He leaned against the captain’s arm.

  There was a color polaroid of a woman one side of the wallet, one of a man on the other. Her hair was loose in a wind that had caused her the slightest squint. His was white, or very pale. The faces suggested age, or experience. But they were handsome, and strong. Perhaps it was the contrast to the pale hair—perhaps shadow and position—but the man’s eyes looked black.

  Gunner pushed his nose under the dark arm and nuzzled the hair. The captain stood. “I’m going on deck.” He reached for his pants. “Come on, Niger.” He shrugged into his shirt. He kicked at the dog, and his chain rang. Niger barked, then followed the captain to the door.

  He stopped once, frowned at the portal; then he saw Gunner. “On deck when you’re done.”

  Gunner sat on the bed, cross-legged. He ran his hand over the damp sheet. Let himself fall, to lay his cheek, roll his face and take the salty folds in his teeth. Elbow shaking, one hand worked in arcs. The other kneaded his belly. His lips kissed unvoiced exhortations. Closed lids and the loose hair shook with his fist.

  The cabin door closed.

  THE SCORPION’S LOG:

  I don’t know when I was born exact. Now I am captain of the Scorpion, a seventy-two foot diesel I have had six years—there was another Scorpion before that, went down on the Guatemalan coast. But I had money and friends in that port. I run gold, small arms, chink labor—they moaned and puked all over the forepeak hole, the engine room and the lazarette, fifty at a time, on this boat that is crowded with me, two children and a dog—and I have enough nets and fishing gear to run as a snapper boat on the North American coast.

  What I like most [The green, account-sized book is worn to the cardboard at the corners. The entries are scant and consist mainly of numbers—except this thickish, raddled section toward the middle. It is in the locker under the bunk, leaning against the wall.] is to read. That is my first enjoyment after the boat. At each port I try to get as many paperback books and magazines as possible. Spanish and English. I can read the French ones too, but slower. German I can only read enough for newspapers, speak enough for trade. But I have to tell something about what I am writing now first.

  We have been adrift two weeks. I tire of the children. They are nasty with me and each other. Gunner sleeps all day which is just as good. Kirsten reads as much as I do. I have all these pages in my log I don’t fill in anyway. This to pass time, then.

  It is liking to read makes me write. I do not like sea stories. I only read them in port. On warm nights I take the lamp on the back deck and read the science fiction stories the Americans write so well. They write about space.

  When I read them, I can look up into night and feel how it must feel to write about traveling between the stars because how I feel between ports. You read these stories, however, in this way, with this attention. The pictures form on the page, or out where the night stops, or when you close your eyes. Because it is something you have never seen, you must bring all your memories of touch, of taste, or what you have seen to make them. But you must be ready to let them break up and come back together different. It is very different from how to read a detective story or a novel.

  An interesting experience. One night reading a magazine with a blue cover from one of the U.S. universities I found a story by a woman whose name I knew because I had read a science fiction novel and some stories by her. The first paragraph had all sorts of words and colors like science fiction, so I got my mind all ready with this attention.

  The story didn’t mean anything to me!

  I didn’t know what it was about. But everything was clear and mysterious, bright and mixed up. Three pages to the end, I realized it was a story about a woman teaching school who gets one of her students to bed with her. I read it again. The story was clear. Only the first paragraph was like science fiction, and it was for the feeling, I think. My attention, you see, turned everything different.

  I want to write about me so that it happens when you read it like the first way I read that story. I can’t tell all my life. I am too lazy, for one. For two—well, one will do.

  Its common fabric is charred, in some of the holes of the edge still glows. Or the burning threads cover what is behind. But I want to write about what is at these. There are only half a dozen, and I am twenty-eight, maybe twenty-nine.

  There was an earthquake while I was almost a baby. I was in the dark, while everything around me swung and rattled. Somebody broke the door. I saw a man and a woman. The mountain behind them roared and tried to shake the fire out of its hair. Bright rock fell down the crags and made steam. They ran for me and I screamed. One picked me up. The other pulled me away when the first one fell.

  There is another picture in my mind from that night. On the beach the man is holding me while the woman is down by the water where the people are shouting, trying to get a boat. Then the man takes me down, because the woman calls him. Grey scabs of ash are wrinkling over the water. The waves
come in and leave one black line along the sand, roll out, come in and leave another.

  Now. The first of these memories sits in my mind like a light that I cannot look at much. Like the sun. More like the sun on the water of the sea. The second is only a memory among hundreds of memories I can remember. I can’t give you the differences in the light, what I felt, and the way. Should I just stop maybe.

  The two figures saving me from the eruption in the village where I was born are the first two. They have changed me. Not by what they said or taught—though that too—but because of this light they suddenly have. Or maybe it is something I put. The closest thing I can talk about it is the feeling I had when I read that story, you understand? To understand what I am talking about, I guess you have to read science fiction.

  The first two were those saved me from the shack where I was a baby.

  The third is Herr Bildungs. I was nine then. We played on the beach. He was with the engineering people who came for the oil. Herr Bildungs was the first to tell me my father was a black soldier from the U.S. and my mother was a Negro who had come down from Haiti. He found it out from the people in the town: my father was gone and my mother was dead. Besides the teacher at the school who taught me to read Spanish, no one had ever told me anything before Herr Bildungs.

  The day we were first on the beach I asked, “Who are you?”

  He laughed, and said, “I am Faustus, the magician.” He let me work for him. And, he was a magician. In his house he had books and magazines with pictures of all over the world. He had a microscope he would let me look in as a reward when I finished my work. He had lenses, rolls of graph paper, compass and inking pens, and a drawing board that tilted when you fixed the nut. I made him tell me what it all was. After I cleaned for him and ran his errands for a year, he taught me how to use some of them. He made me learn English. The other engineers who came to talk with him all spoke English. He had a chart of the elements and a map of the sky he said was almost useless to us because it was a map of the northern sky and we were just under the Tropic of Capricorn. He made me learn the names of all the countries of Europe. Many in Asia. He had been in lots of them. He read me stories in Spanish and English. Once I tried to make him teach me German.