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

toward his armpit. He caught her wrist; the other hand flicked toward him. He caught that
one too in his soft, cold hand. They looked eye to eye, her mouth open and the rouge
spots darkening slowly on her face.
"I gave you your chance back there in town," he said. "You took it."
Behind her the music beat, sultry, evocative; filled with movement of feet, the
voluptuous hysteria of muscles warming the scent of flesh, of the blood. "Oh, God; oh,
God," she said, her lips scarce moving. "I'll go. I'll go back."
"You took it," he said. "Go on."
In his grasp her hands made tentative plucking motions at his coat just out of
reach of her finger-tips. Slowly he was turning her toward the door, her head reverted.
"You just dare!" she cried. "You just--" His hand closed upon the back of her neck, his
fingers like steel, yet cold and light as aluminum. She could hear the vertebrae grating
faintly together, and his voice, cold and still.
"Will you?"
She nodded her head. Then they were dancing. She could still feel his hand at her
neck. Across his shoulder she looked swiftly about the room, her gaze flicking from face
to face among the dancers. Beyond a low arch, in another room, a group stood about the
crap-table. She leaned this way and that, trying to see the faces of the group.
Then they saw the four men. They were sitting at a table near the door. One of
them was chewing gum; the whole lower part of his face seemed to be cropped with teeth
of an unbelievable whiteness and size. When she saw them she swung Popeye around
with his back to them, working the two of them toward the door again. Once more her
harried gaze flew from face to face in the crowd.
When she looked again two of the men had risen. They approached. She dragged
Popeye into their path, still keeping his back turned to them. The men paused and essayed
to go around her; again she backed Popeye into their path. She was trying to say
something to him, but her mouth felt cold. It was like trying to pick up a pin with the
fingers numb. Suddenly she felt herself lifted bodily aside, Popeye's small arms light and
rigid as aluminum. She stumbled back against the wall and watched the two men leave.
"I'll go back," she said. "I'll go back." She began to laugh shrilly.
"Shut it," Popeye said. "Are you going to shut it?"
"Get me a drink," she said. She felt his hand; her legs felt cold too, as if they were
not hers. They were sitting at a table. Two tables away the man was still chewing, his
elbows on the table. The fourth man sat on his spine, smoking, his coat buttoned across
his chest.
She watched hands: a brown one in a white sleeve, a soiled white one beneath a
dirty cuff, setting bottles on the table. She had a glass in her hand. She drank, gulping;
with the glass in her hand she saw Red standing in the door, in a gray suit and a spotted
bow tie. He looked like a college boy, and he looked about the room until he saw her. He
looked at the back of Popeye's head, then at her as she sat with the glass in her hand. The
two men at the other table had not moved. She could see the faint, steady movement of
the one's ears as he chewed. The music started.
She held Popeye's back toward Red. He was still watching her, almost a head
taller than anybody else. "Come on," she said in Popeye's ear. "If you're going to dance,
dance."