Sophie's Choice - William Styron [235]
I think it must have been pure consternation that prevented my following her into the water. So much had happened so quickly that my senses were spinning and I stood rooted to the sand. The shift in mood—the grisly chronicle of Warsaw, followed in a flash by this wanton playfulness. What in hell did it mean? I was wildly excited but hopelessly confused, with no precedent to guide me in this turn of events. In an excess of furtiveness—despite the total seclusion of the place—I slid out of my trunks and stood there beneath the strange churning gray summer sky, helplessly flaunting my manly state to the seraphim. I gulped at the last beer, woozy with mingled apprehension and joy. I watched Sophie swim. She swam well and with what seemed relaxed pleasure; I hoped she was not too relaxed, and for an instant I worried about her mixing swimming with all that whiskey. The air was sweltering, close, but I felt myself in the clutch of malarial trembling and chills.
“Oh, Stingo,” she said with a giggle when she returned, “tu bandes.”
“Tu... what?”
“You have a hard-on.”
She had seen it immediately. Not knowing what to do with it, but trying to avoid the extremes of gaucherie, I had arranged it and me on the blanket in a nonchalant posture—or as nonchalant as possible in my fit of ague—with my distended part concealed beneath my forearm; the attempt was unsuccessful, it flopped into view just before she flopped down beside me, and we rolled like dolphins into each other’s arms. I have since then utterly despaired of trying to capture the tortured excitement of that embrace. I heard myself making little ponylike whinnies as I kissed her, but kissing was all I could manage; I clutched her around the waist with a maniac’s armhold, terrified of stroking her anywhere out of fear that she would disintegrate under my crude fingers. There was a fragile feel to her rib cage. I thought of Nathan’s kick but also of past starvation. My shivering and shaking continued; I was conscious now only of the whiskied sweetness of her mouth and my tongue and hers warmly mingled. “Stingo, you’re shaking so,” she whispered once, drawing back from my canine tongue play. “Just relax!” But I realized I was salivating stupidly—a further humiliation which preyed on my mind as our lips stayed wetly plastered together. I could not figure out why my mouth was leaking so, and this worry itself prevented me even more firmly from exploring breasts, bottom or, God help me, that innermost recess which had figured so thrillingly in my dreams. I was in the grip of a nameless and diabolical paralysis. It was as if ten thousand Presbyterian Sunday School teachers had massed above Long Island in a minatory cloud, their presence resolutely disabling my fingers. The seconds passed like minutes, the minutes like hours, and still I could make no serious move. But then, as if to put a stop to my suffering, or perhaps in an effort simply to get things going, Sophie herself made a move.
“You have a nice schlong, Stingo,” she said, grasping me delicately but with a subtle, knowing firmness.
“Thank you,” I heard myself mumble. A wave of disbelief swept over me (She is actually grabbing me there, I thought) but I tried to affect a saving savoir-faire. “Why do you call it schlong? Down South we call it something else.” My voice had a bad quaver.
“It’s what Nathan calls it,” she replied. “What do you call it in the South?”
“Sometimes we call it a pecker,” I whispered. “In parts of the upper South they call it a dong or a tool. Or a peter.”
“I’ve heard Nathan call it his dork. Also, his putz.”
“Do you like mine?” I could barely hear myself.
“It’s sweet.”
I no longer recall what—if any one thing precisely—brought