From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [86]
He tossed the Journals all aside then, and picked up another Post, feeling in himself the superb strength that was lying useless in his thighs, the heavy power of maleness in his belly, the lightness of the sweating fingertips that had suddenly become so sensitive to every touch.
But the first thing in the Post he saw was another ad, a full page Greyhound Bus Lines spread telling about the Glory of Southern Sun, and in the middle a full length figure of a woman, the round lean lines of her hips staring at you from behind the tiny loosely skirted pants of the two piece bathing suit.
All right, he thought, okay; if thats the way it is; a savagery of anger in him now at the pictures. They print these goddam pictures, and at the same time jail a man for having an eight page book of Toots and Casper, and the women that model for them are shocked if some joe wants to fuck them. They call them “pin-up girls” and think its cute how “our boys,” now that they’re drafted, love to hang them in their wall lockers. And then close up all the whorehouses, every place they can, so our young men will not be contaminated and will not be able to get their nuts off.
He ripped the page out of the Post and wadded it up, crumpling it in his hands until it was only pulpy paper, and threw it across the narrow room into one of the puddles on the floor. He got up and stepped on it hard, grinding it into a sodden mess under his shoe and then stepped back and looked down at it, ashamed because he had destroyed beauty, had taken a living volute woman’s hip and turned it into spitballs.
Climbing the darkened stairs, feeling the maleness in him, the maleness that was denied, hushed, denounced, hedged in, scourged, damned, condemned, and used, feeling the heavy pendulous maleness of the testes in their sac, loaded now to bursting, distended, swinging full bellied as he moved his legs, feeling the excess that overflowed rancidly, burning acidly all through his blood and settling finally in his throat, a thick acidulous phlegm, feeling all that, he wondered if married men ever felt like this. Probably not, because they always had it there where they could reach it. No wonder so many men, offered the continual carrot hung before their nose that they had to pull the loaded wagon for, woke up suddenly to find that they had somehow got married.
You dont want to do it, Prewitt, he told himself. Its kid stuff; its all right for kids, who have never had a taste of what the real is like, who have never had anything else but that. To them its satisfying. You know it wont satisfy you, that it will only make the hunger greater, will only make the other needed more.
But at least it will relieve you. And you’re going to have a stone ache if you dont. And it had its point, he thought, it has its points. I wonder if Maggio really meant that what he said about his fist? or if he was only kidding? I wonder how many of them really do it? like now, in the middle of the month? There’s no way you can ever really know.
Where would you go? There’s not even any place to go for that. Except to bed with a handkerchief. Did you ever go to bed with a handkerchief, friend? Try it, friend, at least you’ll save three dollars. If you had three dollars.
He got his raincoat and his hat off his bed and came back down, feeling the distended ropy tubes inside it that would begin to be painful pretty soon if he didnt do it, but knowing that he could not climb in his bunk with a handkerchief and lie there holding back his breath and being very careful that the springs would not squeak in the breathing stillness of the squadroom; not knowing where to go, but knowing that that was degradation, was shameful, was unbecoming to a man, and suddenly, for no reason, remembering the time in A Company when Red had been taking a siesta, lying naked on his bunk asleep with nothing but a towel across him that had fallen off in the turning of his sleep, and now someone had seen it and had called the others and they had all watched, laughing, as in his sleep, dreaming, the erection had come slowly and inexorably, rising to taunt distention and then spewing forth the fluid meant for woman and that turned rotten in the air. And Red woke seeing them all laughing there, and the shame that was on his face had made Prew turn quickly and walk away, the laughter gone, replaced by hollowness that had made him never mention it again.
It always leaves a hol