The Moon In Its Flight by Gilbert Sorrentino

any problem. There were vacationers, of course, who, daunted by the white, blazing sand and the cruelly hot sun, stayed in their well-ventilated gazebos, “happy,” the roustabouts said, “as cherrystones,” to some small degree. Clams are not usually thought of as domestic animals, particularly the large, blue-ribbon specimens often mistakenly associated with Pennsylvania, its farms, wells, knolls, buzzards, and plentiful copses. There is a wonderful photograph of one such prizewinner, “Old Moot,” who comes up to the ankles of his master, or, as it pleasurably turned out, mistress. I may as well state unequivocally that I prefer not to use the word “mistress” in such close relationship to the mention, such as it is, of an animal. More than one crumpled note has been delivered to me—post-haste!—from breezy oceanfront cabanas regarding such unfortunate contiguities. The threats therein are what a grizzled editor of my acquaintance wisely called “recipes for disaster.” But this time I escaped, and could gaze at the slowly steaming freighter on the horizon in much the same essentially idiotic manner as the other guests. Not, of course, that I was a guest; let us say that I was, simply, very like someone you may well have seen “before.” I was, indeed, once billed as “Queen of Flowers” and “Credenza of Cruel Thorns,” but that was long before certain curious proclivities led to disturbing psychological effects and an unswerving attention to minute details of dress. My gardening regimen, for instance, was almost completely subverted, if I may use a fashionable euphemism. A few of the young flowers, as I like, I suppose I’ve mentioned, to call the unmarried women, were leaving for a better view of Saint-Loup, the hotel’s pasta chef. He, rapt before his own sense of personal vanity, paid attention only to the buffet, and not even the steamer’s insane whistle could tear his gaze from the “plat complet” of vermicelli alla Sciaccatana. None of the lovely young flowers waited for him to notice them, and the message they blushingly but assertively conveyed to him occasioned one of the master’s rare, gap-toothed smiles. He and three of the young ladies swiftly made for the greenhouse, and subsequently were heard the sounds of flustered laughter, creaking wicker, and some more breaking glass. Influenced, perhaps, by the current bestseller, The Hothouse Bacchanal, certain of the older women charged the cliffside gazebo, despite posted warnings to be on the alert for myriad broken spirits. More than one “chink” of blue, as wags still snicker, was fondled that day, although the several dispatches from the administration’s puppets predictably said otherwise. As the sun began to lower itself into the glittering sea, one heard feminine voices everywhere pleading for “salts, my salts, please, my salts, if you love me!” The blue line of chauffeurs, servants, toadies, and hastily deputized police officers prevented angry crowds from approaching the scene of what had rather quickly become an exhausting debacle.
    Later, one had not thought it possible to find gathered together rarer denizens than the young whores, who, at every moment, between their thighs were peeking for signs of glee. Their tender wedges, like bowers in “Pennsylvania poses,” were explored by silklike garters between which perfumes retained a slow, “packed” emotion. Bossed by one schemer, so slow in sliding along the blue, horizontal mime who had stretched from one hem to the next, an idle guttersnipe bawled in humping a whore whom a pimp’s trull had long since sassed. (He could wait before flying off; I’m to arrive before him!) Nothing but the tiniest pink-and-blue rill separated these souls from the fine-fettled whores toward which they were leering.
    Ultimately, it is not possible to say with any certainty whether or not lessons have been learned, since it is not possible to determine the moral objectivity of the