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PARTISAN REVIEW
never have got it straight in my mind. I've seen models in life class,
but that's altogether different. Here it was as though Gloria's un–
covered body were saying something- but God knows what. About
Martha and Phil, no doubt, but she had entirely superceded them.
About her own frustrations, the misery of sex- the same sort of
shrieking statement that everybody had been making that night at
the party-but with this difference, that what Gloria was saying
was absolutely true. Too true, no one wanted to be reminded of it,
whatever it was.
"No one got the meaning, not even George, though he must
have felt it in his bones. And not Gloria for sure. Everyone was too
embarrassed, caught between looking and peeking. I don't care how
sophisticated they're supposed to be--every single soul at that party
was terribly embarrassed. Here they were looking, and mind you, at
the same time
peeping- the
men, at any rate. Looking at what
was unmistakably the fact of a woman's naked body-which by
now was something huge and dominating, and had grown to the
proportions of a colossus. But right out from under that bland,
knowing, winking, appraising, blase and wrinkled little mask of
indifference that they made themselves wear--oh yes, we know
all
about it, put on your clothes, you'll catch cold my dear- every last
one of them was stealing a glance, anxious for his own virility. The
married and the unmarried, the lenten and uxorious alike. You
could hear it crackle in them, these brave cocksmen. Man, this is it!
Oh baby, mamma,
WOWEE-LOOK!
Then why was it that their
blood ran no warmer, that they felt no stir, not a trickle even, and
were it not for the flagellation each of them undertook to beat his
maleness to attention, this exposure to the absolute would have
left no mark at all? Because they don't know. They don't know
what sex is, neither man's nor woman's. Nor do
I.
While I tell you
this I'm master of the scene, and judge of all, but I'm lying. I, too,
don't know. Or I forgot at that moment what it was, that without
the playfulness of love about the eyes, there is no sex, no male or
female and no joining them, and nakedness is nothing but a sur–
render to violence, as Gloria's was, exposure to a rain of blows!
"Oh, it was intolerable. I'm taking a long time telling you this,
but it was over in a minute or two. No one could have borne it any
longer. Already there were giggles and wisecracks (but mind you,
