The Pornographer by John McGahern Read Free Book Online

it.”
    We played, cumbersomely: and yet, when her breathing grew heavy, and my fingers smeared the rich oil along the lipsabove the half-shattered hymen, I, sure in the knowledge that she could hardly turn back from her pleasure, might be a poor Colonel Grimshaw, and she, excited and awkward by my side, might be his Mavis.
    When I heard her catch towards her pleasure I rose above her and she opened eagerly for me, guiding me within her. The Colonel should drive and shaft now and she be full of his thunder, but I lingered instead in the warmth, kissed her in case I would come and die.
    We were man and we were woman. We were both the tree and the summer. There was no yearning toward nor falling away. We were one. It was as if we were, then, those four other people, now gone out of time, who had snatched the two of us into time. For a moment again we possessed their power and their glory anew, pushing out of mind all graveclothes. We had climbed to the crown of life, and this was all, all the world, and even as we surged towards it, it was already slipping further and further away from one’s grasp, and we were stranded again on our own bare lives.
    “Six or seven hours ago we didn’t even know of one another’s existence,” she said.
    “That’s right.”
    “And you don’t think you love me even a little?”
    “No. Love has nothing to do with it. How do you feel now?”
    “I feel great. I don’t feel guilty at all or anything. Only I’m afraid I’m beginning to grow fond of you. Do you think you might grow fond of me?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think you can programme those things.”
    “And, you’ve done this with several?”
    “With a few,” I was growing irritated.
    “Without loving them?”
    “I loved one woman but love has nothing got to do with this. I don’t think it is important now. It was blind. That was all.”
    “Who was she?”
    “She doesn’t matter now. Some other time I’ll tell you.”
    The coal fire had almost died, throwing up the last weak flickers. In a tear in the curtain I could see the grey light outside.
    “Will your aunt and cousins not notice that you are out so late?”
    “I’ll say that I was at a late-night party. I suppose though I should be making a move.”
    “I think it’s close to morning. What I’ll do is walk you to a taxi. There’s no telephone to call from. And there’s always a car in the rank at the bottom of Malahide Road.”
    “I don’t feel guilty or anything. I feel great. What is it but what’s natural,” she repeated as she dressed. “How do you feel?”
    “I feel fine,” I said.
    When she went out to the bathroom and I turned on the light the room seemed incredibly small and lonely and undamaged, like a country railway station in the first or last light.
    “Are you ready?” I asked.
    By way of answer she kissed me and we went out of the house in the early morning stillness. We walked in silence down the road empty except for a milkman and his boy delivering bottles from a float, the whine of the electric motor starting between the houses and the rattle of the bottles intensifying the silence.
    “I suppose this is the usual. Now that it’s over it’s just goodbye,” she said as we drew towards the end of the road.
    “No. I was hoping we’d meet again.”
    “When?”
    “What about next Wednesday?”
    “What’ll you be doing before then?”
    “I have some writing to do. And there’s this aunt of mine who’s in hospital who I have to go to see.”
    “Where will we meet, then?”
    “Do you know the Green Goose?” and when she nodded I said, “We’ll meet up in the lounge at eight o’clock.”
    We kissed again as I held the door of the taxi open, the stale scents of the night mixed with fresh powder or perfume. I gave the taxi man the address and told him I wanted to pay him now. He looked cold and disgruntled in a great swaddling of an overcoat and counted out the pile of silver I gave him, only acknowledging it when he