Unfortunately, Coquette woke up that morning and even before brushing her teeth shouted "Yes oh yes." This had several direct results. It woke Coquette's man of the hour, who moaned "Susan oh Susan" and reached all-inclusively for her torso. Big-handed in sleep, he was, although Coquette did not, indeed could not, have known this. It was an intriguing affair with many secrets.
Now, this is not exactly what Coquette had in mind, but she arched, sighed and submitted, slightly grateful for the time it gave her to calculate. Coquette could never be called a thinking woman, nor a thinking anything, for that matter; but she calculated brilliantly and hiddenly behind that face. That face: a million sparkles and dark, dry gleamings that could sometimes be glimpsed, late at night, unleering, forgiving. And above all, Coquette knew, practically, everything.
It did not matter, for that matter, that Coquette was a beautiful girl. I mean, we mean that everyone was nice to Coquette. I repeat: everyone was nice to Coquette. But you know and I know that niceties of adoration, nice and interesting through they may be, are trite. Boring, one might even say. There was a sore on Coquette, easily distinguishable from the rest of her. The doctor shook his head resignedly. "Too much touching." Two unique things about Coquette: she didn't breathe very much, and she never bruised. This fascinated people.
Coquette was not now, nor indeed had she ever been, what one could term a "cry-baby." Even at eighteen, she exhibited a stoicism unmatched in the locality. The bombs never bothered her, or polite laughter, or really anything. She had ceased to be amazed.
"You never talk," said Coquette, blatantly. It came at an inopportune time.
"Hell, I've only been here twenty moments," he replied, irritated in spite of her youth and glowing good looks.
Restless she was.
"Maybe a little music would be right," she countered, hoisting herself off him with a small ripping noise.
He looked at the ceiling angrily. "You seem distracted," he said, by way of conversation, and tapped his cigar over the bed. A large conical pile of cigar and cigarette ashes squatted undisturbed in the exact center of things. It was a monument sacred to Coquette, and Coquette alone. To her, it was an objective measure of success.
Although she was only almost nineteen, Coquette was resigned. It muse be admitted that there was a certain amount of gaiety in her resignation, couched as it was in cute, lisping, cordial, open terms.
"You're beautiful, Marie," he shouted at her as she emerged from the bathroom. It was a gracious geture of reconciliation on his part, but he had not plumbed the depths of her pride.
She languished over to the bed. There is no doubt that Coquette is sultry. Also desultory. "If only J. P. or Don were here. Yes oh Yes." He reached for her.
Coquette has a comprehensive comprehension of many things in her environment. Her environment consisted of five wooden crates held together by narrow strips of tape. It was magic tape, sticky on both sides. In her little place, Coquette was able to dissemble. She took out her heart and placed in on the personally-engraved shelf that God had made for it there. She took off her right leg and placed it to soak in brine, so that it would be ready for the morrow. She took several mincing steps around the place, breathing deeply, as if freed from some debt. She stripped her hands of watches and rings and playfully made as if to eat them. She took her long delicate fingers and arranged them attractively in a low-slung bowl. Putting a few finishing touches to her toilet, she flushed it.
Clarence held his hand out to her from the silken coverlet. She obediently trotted over to him. Covering her body as far as the eye could see was a skin. It was like a manuscript waiting for a translator to comprehend it. He graped at the slim line that was her waist, and smoothed his hand across her back. He pulled her down to him and kissed her. Her lips were like slick magazine pages, that unfolded and enfolded him, in a resounding display of affection very unlike Coquette. He brushed off the silver power that clung touchingly to his hands.
"What's gotten into you, Elsa? You're not yourself."
This was partly true. Coquette had changed radically after the war. Her life had been full of ups and downs, and it showed on her face, especially in the eyes. Her eyes were empty until she put them on in the morning. People, especially young impressionable boys, were apt to confuse her with Homer. She shook her cool head modestly at what she considered undue praise. "Sagacious Homer," she said, "would never have been resigned to Veal Scallopini at this small intimate place on Fifth Avenue with garlic." Wisdom spilled from her mouth like spittle.
Coquette struggled up, grabbed some air, and ran to the Infirmary. Picking up her heart in mid-stream, she seemed to change her mind. She looked over her shoulder at the man, then let her body follow her head, and her steps followed her glance back to the bed. She lay her burden gently on his manly chest and proceeded to smear it methodically onto him, in a thin fragrant layer reminiscent of Verbena and the springs of years gone by.
Thornton styled himself a perceptive seer. "Declarations like this are very embarrassing to me, and you know it."
"I was only trying to salve you," she said in self-defense.
A scrabbling at the lock was heard, and Tommy, dramatically swaddled in a maroon-lined cape, tip-toed into the room.
"Angela," he intoned mournfully, "I'm afraid, afraid of many things, but most of all my dear I am afraid of you." And without a backward glance he bowed out.
There was a good deal of urgency in the voice of the man on the bed. After it was all over, he began to worry. Where do we go from here?
It had been a long week. Now it was inexplicably, inextricably Sunday morning. Out on the street motorcars full of hatted people passed. Coquette, having grown up on the farm, was good at handling this type of thing. She put a fist through the glass of the window and spat mischieviously and self-righteously in the general direction of the stoplight. There are two kinds of people in the world: 1) those who say "Turn left at the red light," and 2) those who say "Turn left at the green light." Some few individuals say "Turn left at the first light." Light, period. Neutrality.
"Turn on the light, Harvard," she sighed. You should have seen her glowing in the neon-bright bed. He turned to the length of her beside him. "How noble and mobile you are!" he exclaimed. "How did I ever live without you?" When she did not reply he vaulted himself up on his hands and hovered ominously over her. He growled slightly and kissed the graceful navel. "I'm not smart enough for you," he cried, and drawing on his cover-alls, he galloped gallantly out of the room.
Coquette consummated her passion for scrambled eggs with relish. If she had thought, she might have realized that she was alone with Coquette, but as has been said before and will probably be said again, she did not think.
The phone rang then, eighteen times. That was the signal and Coquette knew it. The next time it rang she squared herself, crossed herself, and ambled over to the screaming thing.
"Renee?"
"Yes oh yes."
Which is where we started. Witches where we started.
-The Grain 1966 / Volume Six
published by the Associated Students of Scripps College in Claremont