William Faulkner, SANCTUARY – WordPress.com - literature save 2

still alive; she felt long shuddering waves of physical desire going over her, draining the
color from her mouth, drawing her eyeballs back into her skull in a shuddering swoon.
They were at the crap-table. She could hear herself shouting to the dice. She was
rolling them, winning; the counters were piling up in front of her as Popeye drew them in,
coaching her, correcting her in his soft, querulous voice. He stood beside her, shorter than
she.
He had the cup himself. She stood beside him cunningly, feeling the desire going
over her in wave after wave, involved with the music and with the smell of her own flesh.
She became quiet. By infinitesimal inches she moved aside until someone slipped into
her place. Then she was walking swiftly and carefully across the floor toward the door,
the dancers, the music swirling slowly about her in a bright myriad wave. The table
where the two men had sat was empty, but she did not even glance at it. She entered the
corridor. A waiter met her.
"Room," she said. "Hurry."
The room contained a table and four chairs. The waiter turned on the light and
stood in the door. She jerked her hand at him; he went out. She leaned against the table
on her braced arms, watching the door, until Red entered.
He came toward her. She did not move. Her eyes began to grow darker and
darker, lifting into her skull above a half moon of white, without focus, with the blank
rigidity of a statue's eyes. She began to say Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah in an expiring voice, her body
arching slowly backward as though faced by an exquisite torture. When he touched her
she sprang like a bow, hurling herself upon him, her mouth gaped and ugly like that of a
dying fish as she writhed her loins against him.
He dragged his face free by main strength. With her hips grinding against him, her
mouth gaping in straining protrusion, bloodless, she began to speak. "Let's hurry.
Anywhere. I've quit him. I told him so. It's not my fault. Is it my fault? You dont need
your hat and I dont either. He came here to kill you but I said I gave him his chance. It
wasn't my fault. And now it'll just be us. Without him there watching. Come on. What're
you waiting for?" She strained her mouth toward him, dragging his head down, making a
whimpering moan. He held his face free. "I told him I was. I said if you bring me here. I
gave you your chance I said. And now he's got them there to bump you off. But you're
not afraid. Are you?"
"Did you know that when you telephoned me?" he said.
"What? He said I wasn't to see you again. He said he'd kill you. But he had me
followed when I telephoned. I saw him. But you're not afraid. He's not even a man, but
you are. You're a man. You're a man." She began to grind against him, dragging at his
head, murmuring to him in parrot-like underworld epithet, the saliva running pale over
her bloodless lips. "Are you afraid?"
"Of that dopey bastard?" Lifting her bodily he turned so that he faced the door,
and slipped his right hand free. She did not seem to be aware that he had moved.
"Please. Please. Please. Please. Dont make me wait. I'm burning up."
"All right. You go on back. You wait till I give you the sign. Will you go on
back?"
"I cant wait. You've got to. I'm on fire, I tell you." She clung to him. Together
they blundered across the room toward the door, he holding her clear of his right side; she
in a voluptuous swoon, unaware that they were moving, straining at him as though she