The Tides of Lust

by Samuel Delany

  The face of one of the colored women kept brushing the glass. The other, the darker, moved her lips on the turning cheek, pale tongue at pale tongue, lips crushing to more fullness in the pressing embrace.

  Someone yanked them apart. A palm struck the window, printed it with sweat. Behind the smear the man with the swastika chained on his neck grasped the ceiling beam. In lamplight, his face twisted beyond agony. His hair straggled on his ridged forehead, flattened on his perspiring belly where his belt hung. The haunches of the Negress before him bulged over her heels Her leaking saliva glistened on the veins webbing his cock; sweat jeweled her rough, rough hair.

  Then he recognized the struggling white woman. Beautiful in the sun, in the lamplight with wet arms she was monstrously so. Laughing, then suddenly violently sobbing, till laughter broke out again, she tried to hide her face. One of the fishermen pulled her arm, while another caught her leg. A third caught her other ankle, and clutching her right wrist was the skinny blond youngster. His lips were drawn with effort and she almost pulled him down three times as they dragged her. She heaved in their grip, breasts wobbling and shaking on her ribs. Her vagina rolled like meat in the nut-colored brush. She arched and swung, hair falling from her face, from lids clamped and centered in glittering tear tracks, from lips enlarged with rouge, and strained.

  The sill tugged Robby’s fingers, tapped his chin.

  A pencil in his fist, the captain was writing in what looked like an accounting ledger. Someone brushed against him and he looked up. Lamplight raddled in the Negro’s neck stubble The captain stood, stepped around the table, stepped before the lamp so that all figures were blotted with his shadow. He stepped again.

  A fisherman yanked her leg aside.

  The captain, legs apart between her wider legs, stood with the twin catenary of his testicles in silhouette. He kneeled. The catenaries swung.

  Her crying balked, took a rhythm with his valleying spine, as it arched and straightened, where light spilled back and forth. She made a sound like gagging.

  The cramping muscles at his scrotal base made Robby gasp.

  Figures swayed in the lapping light to the boat’s sway. And Robby could not ponder what he watched for disbelief. Knuckling his eyes because his lids were propped so long, he saw another man had mounted the heaving woman, or another. The pressure lower than his belly he could not touch for pain.

  The gilded figures slipped

  Grinding the verdigrised sill, his chin and fingers grew sore. He sagged on the hull, eye tearing:

  A woman struck a black six-year-old in the belly. The child screamed and staggered toward the window while she came on, raging. Robby jerked back as brown buttocks slapped and flattened on the glass. The boy kept shrieking, jerked left, then slipping right, while she did something to him inside.

  “Hey, boy!”

  From deck the captain, arms folded on the rail, gazed down the side of the boat.

  Robby opened his mouth. What wanted to become speech dissolved. The fog drifted on his blunted tongue. A dog barked in the city.

  “Hey there, boy! What you doing out here tonight? Rumors going out what you got yourself into some trouble,” and laughter followed into the fog.

  Robby blinked against the chill. Night’s vapors coiled between them to blur the buck. “Some people are saying you messed up one of this town’s more respectable young ladies”

  Memories confused themselves in Robby’s mind. Something raged in him and would take no name. He stepped back again, trying to speak. He was still shivering. Something coursed through, leaving a burning in his joints, setting a slow rage in his belly.

  “Come on up here.”

  Robby stepped on the plank. His boot hit a cross rib and he stopped. Flecks of light sped the water.

  “You think it’s a good idea for you just to be hanging around like this?” The captain reached under his shirt to scratch. “We’ll be pulling out of here come dawn.”

  From among the houses came a fit of canine wailing. The captain looked up. Then his eyes returned to Robby “You going to come aboard, boy?”

  Robby stepped on the boat. “What . . .” and had to back off the word to get voice. “. . . what do you want me to do . . . Captain.”

  The captain frowned.

  “I’ll do anything you want me to, Captain” The sound kept roughening, snagging on harsher sounds. And there was the metallic backing of hysteria. Robby looked at the deck.

  “Anything?”

  “You tell me to do something. I don’t care. I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” He began to raise his eyes. “. . . do it!”

  The black, bare feet on the grey boards; the heavy chain on the right ankle; the frayed denim cuffs—the seam on the left had torn halfway up the calf—and the knees, grey, and baggy; Robby’s eyes reached the second baggy place, high on the thigh. His heart drummed. His armpits greased with sweat. He watched the captain slip one thumb through a belt loop: the dark fingers arched on the lap. Did what was in the pants leg move?

  The captain laughed. “You sure as shit look like you would!”

  Robby’s jaw hurt, and he was very cold. His vision kept blurring with veils and wild glistenings. He forced out, “Tell me . . .” and his belly had become water. He thought he was falling, thought he was rising.

  “Come on down with us to the cabin.” The captain clapped Robby’s shoulder. The blow struck with more laughter, broke with the waters on the pilings about them. Within the cage of his tensed muscles, Robby prepared some motion . . .

  “There—” Crack! “—he is!”

  The captain jerked his hand from the drifter’s shoulder.

  Whites ringing his pupils, Robby began to clutch at his side as if some insect had gotten into his shirt. He got down on one knee—

  Nig: “Hey, you got him, Bull!”

  Dove: “Look at the motherfucker go!”

  —opened his mouth, put one hand out to catch himself, then rolled over, face up and terrible with recognition.

  Bull clomped onto the deck, swinging his rifle from both hands. Nig and Dove, grinning, were behind him in a moment, peering around his elbows. Bull, licking first his upper lip, then his lower, stopped about three feet from the body. Both lips went into his mouth, then came out again.

  Blood crawled on the deck to catch between the boards, spreading from the puddle in an ordered grill.

  Shaking his head, Bull thumped the butt down and lay the barrel along his leg; the sight on the barrel’s tip flattened red stomach hair. (The shape defined where the metal stretches his pants is substantially thicker than the barrel.) “Shit. Guess I had to kill the stupid motherfucker, now, didn’t I? Priest wouldn’t let me alone no how. And you can’t let a man go running around the streets when everybody thinks he done something like that.” He scratched his bald head with the nubs of his hairy fingers. “I told that old black bastard you two got for a pappy you better watch out from now on. Take it easy next time. Bitch hadn’t a’ died, I wouldn’t a’ had to do this.”

  Dove: “Sure, Bull”

  Nig: “Sure thing, Bull.”

  Dove moves his foot aside because the blood had reached it; leaves a track.

  Nig crouches down, reaches out as though to touch the body, says: “Oh shit . . .” changes his mind, and stands.

  On Bull’s pants, a dim of wet grew to a fifty-cent piece. He slapped the barrel a few more times. “I wonder what that poor piss-drinkin’ son of a bitch is starin’ at? Hey, nigger?” Bull gestured at the captain with his chin. “What you suppose he seein’ now?” Bull’s chest became a shaking hogshead of laughter. Laughing, he looked up.

  They came from the hatch door. some stood at the rails. Those at the dockside of the ship threw shadows on the deck. (Those at the far side threw shadows on the water.) The blonde girl leaned against the locker, fingering, at her breasts, her torn blue smock.

  Bull took a deep breath, looked around. “All right. Somebody help me get him out of the way.”

  Nig a
nd Dove moved to grapple the carcass; but Bull swung at them with his rifle stock. “Get out of here!” They danced back, surprised. “You two bastards given me enough trouble tonight,” he grumbled. Bull swung again.

  They slunk, still grinning, to the rail.

  Dove left bloody footprints.

  Nig left none at all.

  “Come on, Captain. Help me get him put away.”

  With three running steps, and two walking, Kim came up beside them, took Bull’s gun. Watching the two men pick up the body, she turned her fist on the barrel. Was it warm from the murder shot, or the murderer’s belly? The expression on her face was not a smile; but it made Kirsten think of someone smiling.

  The captain hooked his hands under the corpse’s armpits.

  Bull picked up the ankles. As the hips left the deck and swung, one foot slipped Bull’s hand. The shoe heel banged.

  In the cabin a woman laughed. (Around the deck they look around.) Bull glanced at the hatch before he picked up the foot again.

  Nazi, breathing hard, stepped from in front of the gangplank to let them pass. He rubbed the wet hair on his chest. His breath was loud. The chain, with its swinging swastika, clinked on his wrist. His smile recalled someone in rage, or agony, or both. He was not thinking much of anything.

  Before the captain stepped from the gangplank to the dock, he hefted the body a little higher.

  Halved by the hull, the laughter shrilled and doubled back, more shrilly, through tones it had touched before.

  Light from the nearest porthole suddenly halved.

  The captain looked.

  A woman’s face pressed the glass, tongue caught at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers tipped the sill. Lamplight behind her exploded in loose hair, dimmed her features.

  In another part of the city, the longer hand on the church clock, in three starts, lurched a minute nearer midnight. Niger lolloped and high-legged it through the streets, pausing at a studio door, at the center of the city square, at a barred cellar window, to howl the season’s turning.

  A flash detonates all the combustible night.

  BULL, RETURNED:

  Anything? How about you want to suck on my dick. Shit, I can come ten or twelve times in a night, if I want. Last one was number nine. (He leans against the rocking cabin wall, hands in his pockets. Sometimes he moves his arm to brush Gunner’s. He stares directly in front of him and tries to make it seem as though it is the boat’s sway. On the rug, a hand flexes, is locked by another, is pulled back among heaving bodies. Gunner stares at the light points on the studs in Bull’s collar, the rigid flesh of the dark elbow, the reflections on the sweat under tangled belly hair.) You like piss, hey? Nazi told me you like to drink a guy’s piss. You know what I like: When I get all ready to come, say when maybe some little kid is sucking on my dick, I start to pee. It’s just like coming, only for a whole minute, you know? Mostly I just do it when I jerk off. I mean, I’d really like to do that. Yeah? Get down there, yeah! Like to have you around for a while, boy. You can take almost as much as I got to give. (Gunner has crouched down. Bull has one hand on Gunner’s shoulder. The other fumbles his fly.) Okay, now come on and do it. Use your teeth . . . harder, yeah, like that. Oh, yeah, fine. You’re doing real fine.

  SEVEN

  HARBOR OF THE SCORPION

  But Doctor Faustus within short time after he had obtained his degree fell into such fantasies and deep cogitations that he was marked of many, and of the most part of the students was called the Speculator.

  —The Historie of the Damnable

  Life and Deserved Death of Doctor

  John Faust (1592)

  THE SCORPION’s log:

  Perhaps this is a bad book.

  If there are bad things in this book then I should throw it in the water because I was afraid of what was on his face and because I was surprised and scared—I wasn’t surprised at Bull in fact I guess I’m glad—because I didn’t feel sorry for him at all. I didn’t feel sorry for him.

  And it would be too much trouble to have write this down then to tear it up. Or hire him.

  It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind. I think they both have to do with one another and attention but I do not know. I know I want to tear it up. It is not I can’t come like he said a seventh time because I did and did again. But there can’t be any more magicians because I have learned how that works and am happier now listening to the water or maybe (The entry stops here.)

  First-light burned blue fog from the water. The captain stepped out on the cold deck. His breath, like blue fog, curled away.

  Wedged against the cabin by the water tank was a knot of sun-burned arms, sun-bleached hair, khaki pants with a knee showing, bare feet clutching each other: Gunner slept curled around himself, the fingers of one hand caging his face.

  The captain shook his head, smiling, went back in the cabin, came out again with the canvas coat, and put it over the boy. Gunner grunted, shifted, slept on.

  Through the galley window he saw Kirsten, sitting on a crate, elbows over the table’s storm lip, looking a a comic. With his knuckles, he made the screen chatter. She looked up, threw back her hair, and came to the door. “Captain . . . ?” A hand on each jamb, she leaned out. “Will you want breakfast now?”

  He swung to cuff her.

  She let go with one hand, dodged sideways, then looked out again. The slightest frown battled the slightest smile. Her smock was safety-pinned.

  “You haven’t been to bed yet?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not tired.”

  “Put the supper pot on the stove. I’ll heat it up when I get back. Drag your half-wit brother down into the cabin. He won’t be any good to me with pneumonia.” He stalked across the smeared deck, frowned at it once, but did not slow till he was on the dock.

  He scratched his stomach through the flaps of his shirt, dropped his hand under his belt, scratched again.

  At the end of the wharf, someone was hammering. The blows echoed like gongstrokes. After half a dozen shots, even that stopped.

  He walked across the packed dirt, across gravel, across paving—stepped up a curb; and entered the town.

  The barred frame on the cellar window of the Hall of Mirrors were open. The lock, hasp twisted back, lay on the ground. The captain pushed it with his toe; the insides jingled loosely. He grinned.

  When he reached the wide street before the church, he heard a scrabbling behind. He turned as Niger’s paws struck his hip. “Hey, you black devil! Where have you been all night?” The dog bounced to the pavement, bounced back. “Good to see you, you son of a . . .” and pulled at the dog’s ears, shook the head by the lower jaw. Two women coming up the street watched, then stopped watching when the captain watched back. Niger ahead, the captain turned the corner, back to the wharf.

  As they passed Proctor’s second-floor studio, Niger growled.

  “What? You think we should let the old fool sleep out his Sunday? Well, I’ve found you. Back to the boat, boy!” Someone was whistling overhead. He looked up. The studio windows were opened and the music came through. It stopped for a few moments of conversation; the voices were Proctor’s and Benny’s. Then a face passing and pausing at the window: “Captain?”

  “Hey, Proctor!”

  And Niger barked.

  “You pull out today, Captain?”

  “Off in a few minutes.”

  “Come up for a moment, then.” Face gone and only this voice: “Benny, get the captain some coffee.” Back: “I want to show you something, Captain! Come up!”

  “I got to go on to the—”

  Gesturing: “Come on!”

  And Niger was running up and down the first four steps.

  “Coffee,” Benny said when the captain reac
hed the top step.

  The captain took the mug in both hands and lowered his face. His lips heated over the black disk, marred with steam, his own reflection, and smelling of chicory.

  “Can I give the dog . . . ?” Niger was already leaping at the tin pan of scraps.

  “Sure.” Then the captain—“Down boy!”—looked again at the wall. Wrapping paper was taped along the molding. On a step ladder, Proctor drew with a lump of chalk. The paper rattled.

  “What do you think?” Proctor stepped down, left his chalk on the top rung. His fingers were stained terra cotta. “This is just a cartoon for the finished work, of course. But it suggests the composition and some of the immediate detail.” He came across the floor, dusting his fingers on his jeans.

  “Cartoon? It’s going to move like a movie?”

  Proctor laughed. “No. I just mean it’s full-sized. It’ll be transferred to a wall, then filled in with color. I’ve been working on it since before sun-up.”

  The captain frowned at the length of paper. Then smiled.

  “Ah, you can respond to it. Even at this stage. But you know all my models. Still, the problem remains aesthetic. I’m transported by the idea of using the material in such a way that all the relations remain Unreal.”

  “You missed the best part.” The captain laughed.

  “I hear you went on well after I left.” Proctor took a cup from Benny. “I’m only interested in chaos as far as it can be contained in ritual. Even if it’s just the ritual of creation. Beyond that, reality bores me. Art is terribly limiting to certain of the sensibilities, I suppose. Oh, I’d make quite a devil.”

  Niger worried his bone joints to the boards.

  “Pleasure, suffering, boredom, death: following the path of least resistance, you are going to have a fair amount of all four. With effort, one can avoid much of the first. With craft, one can make the last three meaningful. But what connection can art make between these inevitables?” He shrugged.

  Niger left clacking his knucklebones to sniff Proctor’s boot, blotting the dust with his nose. He wheeled to the captain and tongued a wet ribbon across rayed ligaments and wormy veins. Satisfied with the comparison, he sat by his master and thumped the floor.