World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) by Richard Mason Read Free Book Online Page B

forgets about his wife. He catches a girl, makes love. Then inside he feels different. He remembers his wife. He thinks, ‘I’m bad, very bad!’ He feels very ashamed. So he runs off.”
    â€œMaybe you not so crazy,” Typhoo said, impressed. “Yes, he was nice man, that ship captain. He got plenty good heart.”
    â€œYes, I think that’s right,” Gwenny nodded. And she turned to me to elucidate. “You see, often sailors will take a girl all night, because they have been a long time without a girl and think they are very strong. But their strength goes quickly.”
    â€œSure, every sailor same-same,” Typhoo grinned. “He think, ‘Minute my ship reach Hong Kong, I catch girl, make love nine, ten, twelve times.’ What happen? He makes love once, twice—finish!”
    â€œYes, that’s right,” Gwenny said. “Finish.”
    â€œHe just go to sleep—and snore-snore!” She laid her head on her hands as though on a pillow and distorted her face hideously in imitation of a sailor snoring; then grinned again. “Then morning-time he wake up and think, ‘Hey, me crazy! That snore-snore cost me forty, fifty dollars! I gotta make up!’ So he poke girl friend in the rib and say, ‘Hey, come on, sweetie! We make love ten more times—we gotta be plenty quick!’ So what happen? He make love one more time—then finish! Go back ship!”
    â€œIt’s a good thing it’s like that,” Gwenny smiled. “It would be awful otherwise.”
    â€œYou crazy or something?” Little Alice’s giggles boiled up again. “You all crazy? If my boy friend go to sleep, I hit him! I say, ‘Hey, come on! Me sex-starve!’” And her plump little body shook, her earrings danced and bobbed.
    â€œYou got plenty cheek, taking sailors’ money,” Typhoo said. “You enjoy make-lovey so much, why you don’t pay sailors?”
    Just then there was an influx of matelots through the door from the quay, fifteen or twenty in a bunch. The girls fell silent, watching them. The matelots sat down at three or four empty tables, ordering San Migs from the waiters and casting sideways glances at the girls, but not letting their glances linger or catching the girls’ eyes in case they should get landed with girls they did not want. Presently all the girls except Gwenny drifted away from my table, hovering round the sailors, asking politely if they could join them, then sitting down rather stiffly in their high-necked cheongsams, demure and attentive, lighting the sailors’ cigarettes and pouring their beer. The sailors were awkward for a bit and then began to unbend.
    â€œGwenny, aren’t I keeping you?” I said.
    â€œOh, no,” she said quickly, dropping her eyes to her knitting.
    â€œOughtn’t you to be making some money?” I had already told her that I would not be having a girl, because although I thought several of them very attractive, I did not see how it would work out if I was living among them.
    â€œWell, perhaps I should really go and work,” Gwenny said, relieved that I had suggested it. “Only it seems rude to leave you.”
    â€œOf course it isn’t.”
    â€œAnyhow, I may not have any luck.”
    However, half an hour later I saw her rise from a table with a big, clumsy, tow-haired matelot. She led the way to the door, looking rather delicate and skinny, though very neat and poised; so poised that you might have thought she was going in to dinner at Government House. The matelot shambled after her. They went through into the hall and the door swung to and fro behind them. The juke box was playing “Seven Lonely Days.” The record came to an end and a matelot went over, put in a coin, and pressed a button. It was for the same record over again. He left the juke box to its manipulations and went back to his table. I caught the