|
|
 |
 |
|
| Anthony Burgess, novelist |
Old Cabbage and Face Powder |
|
|
I was fifteen when I met a girl named Edith . . . I sat next to her on the back row of the Princess cinema, and it seemed to her natural to give me her hand to hold. She had been eating sweets, and it was a sticky hand. I boldly put my arm around her and fondled her breast. When the film was over, she invited me home. The house smelt of old cabbage and face powder: her mother was a bit of a slut. On the floor, totally naked at Edith's request, I was able to see debris under the one armchair, including a bloodied clout I was later to identify as a sanitary towel. She too stripped totally. She asked me if I had a thing to put on, and I did not know what she meant. But almost at once it was too late anyway. Boys cannot make love. Nature is so eager to shoot young seed that she forgets what it is for. Premature climax: it sounds like a drama critic's rebuke. (Manchester, England, 1932)
from Little Wilson and Big God by Anthony Burgess (Stoddart, © 1987)
© 2000 Nerve.com, Inc.
|
|
|
|
|
