'Don't be too proud!' he shouted after me. 'Don't ever plead, but don't be too proud.'
Rare advice from the strangest of seers! Down dark Iowa Avenue, a horde of fag maulers lurked in every shadow. Would they leave me alone if I showed them I was straight? If I meet a girl, should I rape her? Watch me! I'm normal!
Or I could have left the curtains open when I came home to Biggie, my great tawny lioness, propped in our well-grooved bed, lying on and under a wealth of magazines and little pillows with stitched-on Alpine scenes.
'My God, smell you!' said Biggie, staring at me. And the horror of the explanation struck me then as strong as the lush steam of perfumed urine wafting off me from my contact with the Root's Bookstore employee. I was a diluted version of his fragrance.
'What's that all over you?' said Biggie. 'Who's that? You prick ...'
'I just went to Benny's,' I said. 'There was a fairy in the men's room. The one who works at Root's, you know?' But Biggie came bounding off the bed, sniffing me all over, catching up my hands to her nose. 'Really, Big,' I said, and tried to nip her cheek, but she stiff-armed me away from her.
'Oh, you prick, you bastard, Bogus ...'
'I haven't been illicit, Big, I swear ...'
'God!' she cried. 'You even bring her smell back to my own house!'
'Biggie, it was this damn fag in the men's room. He got rolled in the urinal, broke some toilet water he had in his pocket ...' Shit, I thought. That doesn't even sound possible, not to mention true. I said with hopeless calm, 'It was very strong-smelling, it rubbed off ...'
'I'll bet she's strong-smelling!' Biggie screamed. 'Like some bitch in heat, she's got her damn scent all over you!'
'I didn't do anything, Big--'
'Something exotic, I'll bet,' said Biggie. 'One of those Hindus in robes, with their twitchy things. And smelling like a whole harem! Oh, I know you, Bogus! You always went for that, didn't you? Always ogling the blacks and those kinky Orientals and swarthy Jewesses! Goddamn you, I've seen you!'
'For Christ's sake, Big--'
'It's true, Bogus!' she yelled. 'You really go for that, I know. Hairy ones and whorish ones ... fucking gaudy dirt!'
'Jesus, Big!'
'You always wanted me different,' she said; she bit her fist. 'Look what you buy me for clothes. You buy me terrible things. I tell you, I'm not like that! My thighs are too big. "Don't wear a bra," you'll tell me. "You got great boobs, Big," you say. And if I don't wear a bra, I flop like a cow! "Looks great, Big," you say. Jesus, I know what I look like. My nipples are bigger than some girls' tits!'
'That's true, Big. They are. And I love your nipples, Biggie--'
'You don't!' she cried. 'And you're always saying how you don't like blondes. "I don't like blondes, as a rule," you say, and then you pat me some place rude. "As a rule," you say, with your little nudges, giving me a feel--'
'I'll give you a little feel right now,' I
said, 'if you don't shut up.'
But she stepped back and put the bed between us. 'Don't you touch me, goddamn you,' she said.
'I haven't done anything, Big.'
'You reek!' she screamed. 'You must have done it in a barn! Wallowed with some sow in ... in mulch!'
I tore off my shirt and bellowed at her. 'Smell me, damn you, Biggie! It's just my hands that stink--'
'Just your hands, Bogus?' she said with icy calm. 'In the barn,' she said slowly, 'did you finger-fuck a goat on the side?' I could see this was beyond reason, so I jerked off my boots, yanked down my pants and hopped at her, trying to get my underwear unsnaggled from my ankles.
'You animal!' she yelled. 'You keep your thing away from me, Bogus! Oooogh! There's no telling what you've caught! I won't have any, thank you just the same.' She dodged to the foot of the bed as I lunged at her, catching the bottom hem of her absurd, ballooning nightie - that wretched cotton-flannel one - ripping the thing up to the seam running around her neck and spinning her back on the bed. I had her almost strait-jacketed in the thing when she landed a high, skier-strong kick to my chest, leaving me holding the tatters of her nightie as she sprinted for the hall. I caught her from behind in the doorway, but she reached over my shoulder with one hand sunk in my hair; between her legs with her other hand, she gouged toward my vitals. I worked a neat back-heel trip - a better one, surely, than in my entire wrestling career. I was sure she'd be stunned, but she slashed an elbow back into my throat and bucked up to her hands and knees under me. With Biggie, you've got to control her legs. I tried a late body-scissors as she came up to her feet, but she bore me on her back across the room, tottering toward the dresser, in front of which she expertly tucked and rolled, diving my head and shoulders into the lingerie drawer.
I saw stars then, and tasted my tongue, which, despite half-biting off in every wrestling match I ever had, I've never learned to keep inside my mouth. I clung to her hip as she strode away from the dresser, deftly blocking her fierce uppercut with my forehead, and while she raged over the pain in her hand, I pivoted behind her knee and dropped her with a side-leg dive - this time scissoring her near leg and barring her far arm in my tightest cross-body ride (a desperate, hang-on maneuver I often used in my career). She thrashed well, groping with her free hand for something to hurt. I seized this moment to press my advantage and barred both her arms, spinning out at a right angle to her body and jacking her up on the back of her neck. Her fearsome legs crashed all around me, though she was stacked up good; in fact, I had her pinned, but there was no referee to slap the mat and call us quits. The double arm-bar hurt her, I knew, so I slithered my pale stomach up alongside her head, laying my navel against her hot cheek, watchful for her bite. I was careful not to lose my hold; it was at peak moments like these that I had developed the habit of getting myself inexplicably pinned. I inched my vulnerable part up close to her wild eye, ever mindful of her good teeth, just out of reach.
'I'll bite that damn thing off, I swear it,' Biggie grunted, and she heaved against my double arm-bar which held her like a vice.
'Be kind enough to smell it first, Big,' I said, brushing my belly on her smooth cheek; her heavy knees sailed around my ducked head and thumped my back. 'Just smell me, please,' I told her, 'and give me your honest impression of the scent. Whether my important part has any foreign odor, any reek of harems, Big. Or whether what you smell is strictly me.' Her knees pumped slower; I saw her nose wrinkle. 'In your estimation, Biggie,' I said, 'in your wealth of experience in this matter of my odor would you say that you detect the faintest presence of anything unusual? Would you venture a guess as to whether this belly has slid against some other belly and taken on a different reek?' I could feel her cringe - a disarming shiver against the double arm-bar - and I let her turn her face a little and slide her nose where she would, my frightened part rested on her cheek now. He put his life on the line to save his marriage.