Portnoy’s Complaint

When The Monkey stepped out of the bathroom and saw that the ball game was already under way, she wasn't entirely pleased. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her little features smaller than I had ever seen them, and declining an invitation to participate, silently watched until I had had my orgasm and Lina had finished faking hers. Obligingly then- sweetly, really- Lina made for between my mistress' long legs, but The Monkey pushed her away and went off to sit and sulk in a chair by the window. So Lina- not a person overly sensitive to interpersonal struggle- lay back on the pillow beside me and began to tell us all about herself. The bane of existence was the abortions. She was the mother of one child, a boy, with whom she lived on Monte Mario ("in a beautiful new building," The Monkey translated). Unfortunately she could not manage, in her situation, any more than one- "though she loves children"- and so was always in and out of the abortionist's office. Her only precautionary device seemed to be a spermicidal douche of no great reliability.

I couldn't believe that she had never heard of either the diaphragm or the birth-control pill. I told The Monkey to explain to her about modern means of contraception that she could surely avail herself of, probably with only a little ingenuity. I got from my mistress a very wry look. The whore listened but was skeptical. It distressed me considerably that she should be so ignorant about a matter pertaining to her own well-being (there on the bed with her fingers wandering around in my damp pubic hair): That fucking Catholic church, I thought…

So, when she left us that night, she had not only fifteen thousand of my lire in her handbag, but a month's supply of The Monkey's Enovid- that I had given to her.

"Oh, you are some savior!" The Monkey shouted, after Lina had left.

"What do you want her to do- get knocked up every other week? What sense does that make?"

"What do I care what happens to her!" said The Monkey, her voice turning rural and mean. "She's the whore! And all you really wanted to do was to fuck her! You couldn't even wait until I was out of the john to do it! And then you gave her my pills!"

"And what's that mean, hub? What exactly are you trying to say? You know, one of the things you don't always display, Monkey, is a talent for reason. A talent for frankness, yes- for reason, no!"

"Then leave me! You've got what you wanted! Leave!"

"Maybe I will!"

"To you I'm just another her, anyway! You, with all your big words and big shit holy ideals and all I am in your eyes is just a cunt- and a lesbian!- and a whore!"

Skip the fight. It's boring. Sunday: we emerge from the elevator, and who should be coming through the front door of the hotel but our Lina- and with her a child of about seven or eight, a fat little boy made out of alabaster, dressed all in ruffles and velvet and patent leather. Lina's hair is down and her dark eyes, fresh from church, have a familiarly Itahan mournful expression. A nice-looking person really. A sweet person (I can't get over this!). And she has come to show off her bambino! Or so it looks.

Pointing to the little boy, she whispers to The Monkey, "Molto elegante, no?" But then she follows us out to our car, and while the child is preoccupied with the door-man's uniform, suggests that maybe we would like to come to her apartment on Monte Mario this afternoon and all of us do it with another man. She has a friend, she says- mind you, I get all this through my translator- she has a friend who she is sure, she says, would like to fuck the signorina. I can see the tears sliding out from beneath The Monkey's dark glasses, even as she says to me, "Well, what do I tell her, yes or no?" "No, of course. Positively not." The Monkey exchanges some words with Lina and then turns to me once again: "She says it wouldn't be for money, it would just be for- "

"No! No!"

All the way to the Villa Adriana she weeps: "I want a child too! And a home! And a husband! I am not a lesbian! I am not a whore!" She reminds me of the evening the previous spring when I took her up to the Bronx with me, to what we at the H. O. commission call "Equal Opportunity Night." "All those poor Puerto Rican people being overcharged in the supermarket! In Spanish you spoke, and oh I was so impressed! Tell me about your bad sanitation, tell me about your rats and vermin, tell me about your police protection! Because discrimination is against the law! A year in prison or a five-hundred-dollar fine! And that poor Puerto Rican man stood up and shouted, 'Both!' Oh, you fake, Alex! You hypocrite and phony! Big shit to a bunch of stupid spies, but I know the truth, Alex! You make women sleep with whores!"

"I don't make anybody do anything they don't want to do."