Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [47]
So she kept telling him about herself but it wasn't as straight. More and more, she put old boy friends down and made believe they were nothing in her life, and began to keep the best part for herself. After that night at the nuthouse, a lot of her past stayed inside her. It was like seeing a movie of herself floating down the river, and seeing it mostly for herself and just telling him a couple of the sights.
Before Sunny was even ten weeks old, Nicole got into a new thing. She began to date guys on Midway that never had been laid right. In part that was because Barrett had convinced her she wasn't any good in bed. Maybe she preferred therefore to go with somebody who didn't know what good was. Of course, Barrett had his own hang-up-he couldn't bet on getting it up with any girl but her. So, in a quiet way, he could get jealous as a maniac. Sometimes they'd be walking through town and a guy would smile at her, and Barrett would be convinced she had fucked the fellow. Only he would hold it to himself. Three or four days later, it would come out. He'd treat her like a slut. Make a point of the number of times she had been tooled before she ever met him. Said the cruelest things about how big she was. She always wanted to reply it wouldn't be so bad if he had something thicker than a finger's worth of dick. So she figured she needed a period where she was just making it with guys who were absolutely grateful.
Before too long, however, Nicole decided to come back from Midway. She had done lots of exercise and was feeling real good and slim, and the baby was beautiful. It was summer and Barrett was there to greet her at the airport. He was moving a couple of pounds a day of the best grass, and looking prosperous himself, wanted her back with him. She had a new rap, however. "I'm not your old lady," she told him. "You're not my old man. I can do what I want." Still, she moved in. That was a summer when they got high all the time on the best THC and Cannabinol. She really felt like sex.
That's when Barrett became the guy she could get her rocks off with consistently. She wondered if that meant he was the guy she was supposed to work it out with. Maybe it was conditioned reflex, but Barrett could turn her on by walking into a room. The THC had mellowed her out and she felt like dancing all the time. (Except she started getting headaches whenever she was straight, and her teeth began to hurt, and her kidneys. Powerful stuff.) Still, it made for some awful good sex.
It was lonely, however. Barrett knew nothing about her head. Just liked to be the big man. Enjoyed walking around like the dealer that people were watching. Karma was a blank to him. Nicole gave him A World Beyond by Ruth Montgomery Ford. Later, he said he read it, but that's all he told her. Wasn't much comment for a man as smart as he was. It certainly did no good for Nicole, since she was getting kind of suicidal with the Cannabinol. There was one dream where she thought she'd died, and laid down in a grave dug in the desert. In her last seconds, a soft black night came over all of her, and said, "Come to me."
She was so shook up she told Barrett death had spoken, and she would welcome it. Hey, look, he said, you're much too valuable. He didn't have anything to give on the subject.
They began to have personal troubles, too. He had a partner, Stoney, that she liked, who was staying with them. One night, feeling as horny as the hot summer night, she went up to Barrett in a sweet little way and said, "Why don't you sleep on the couch and give Stoney a break." It freaked Barrett out, but he had made the deal that she wasn't his old lady no more, so he lay down on the couch, and Stoney got in with her. Barrett was so pissed, he took off in his car, then came back about twenty minutes later and told his partner to get out. That seemed to be the end of that.