‘Scared?’ she said.

‘Of you?’ I laughed.

‘You are,’ she said.

‘No I’m not.’

She opened her arms and all of her seemed to open to me. but it only closed me deeper into myself, carrying with me the image of her at that time, how lush and soft she was.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m busy. Look.’ I patted the pile of manuscript beside the typewriter.

‘You’re afraid, too.’

‘Of what?’

‘Me.’

‘Pooh.’

Silence.

‘There’s something wrong with you,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You’re queer.’

I got up and stood over her.

‘That’s a lie,’ I said.

We lay there. She was forcing it with her scorn, the kiss she gave me, the hard curl of her lips, the mockery of her eyes, until I was like a man made of wood and there was no feeling within me except terror and a fear of her, a sense that her beauty was too much, that she was so much more beautiful than I, deeper rooted than I. She made me a stranger unto myself, she was all of those calm nights and tall eucalyptus trees, the desert stars, that land and sky, that fog outside, and I had come there with no purpose save to be a mere writer, to get money, to make a name for myself and all that piffle. She was so much finer than I, so much more honest, that I was sick of myself and I could not look at her warm eyes, I suppressed the shiver brought on by her brown arms around my neck and the long fingers in my hair. I did not kiss her. She kissed me, author of The Little Dog Laughed. Then she took my wrist with her two hands. She pressed her lips into the palm of my hand. She placed my hand upon her bosom between her breasts. She turned her lips towards my face and waited. And Arturo Bandini, the great author dipped deep into his colourful imagination, romantic Arturo Bandini, just chock-full of clever phrases, and he said, weakly, kittenishly,

‘Hello.’

‘Hello?’ she answered, making a question of it. ‘Hello?’ And she laughed. ‘Well, how are you?’

Oh that Arturo! That spinner of tales.

‘Swell,’ he said.

And now what? Where was the desire and the passion? She would go away in a little while and then it would come. But my God, Arturo. You can’t do that! Recall your marvellous predecessors! Measure to your standards. I felt her groping hands, and I groped to discourage them, to hold them in passionate fear. Once more she kissed me. She might have given her lips to a cold boiled ham. I was miserable.

She pushed me away.

‘Get away,’ she said. ‘Let me go.’

The disgust, the terror and humiliation burned in me, and I would not let go. I clung to her, forced the cold of my mouth against her warmth, and she fought with me to break away, and I lay there holding her, my face in her shoulder, ashamed to show it. Then I felt her scorn grow to hatred as she struggled, and it was then that I wanted her, held her and pleaded with her, and with each wrench of her black rage my desire mounted and I was happy, saying hooray for Arturo, joy and strength, strength through joy, the delicious sense of it, the rapturous self-satisfaction, the delight to know that I could possess her now if I wished. But I did not wish it, for I had had my love. Dazzled I had been by the power and joy of Arturo Bandini. I released her, took my hand from her mouth, and jumped off the bed.