Compulsion. Meyer Levin

he would be tearing in a rage at his own bondage, at having to have it, at the flesh being stronger than the intellect.

      The times he had waited, in agony like tonight, always waiting for that capricious bastard—“See you at nine”—and you’d wait, getting more and more excited, imagining what you would do to him as soon as he came in.

      Then, like some damn girl, Artie would behave as if the two of you had never done it at all, as if an idea like that never entered his thoughts. The bastard didn’t need it. He was like the girls who didn’t really need it the way a man did.

      The house was safe now. If only Artie would show up, they could be alone to themselves in the house, in this room. For two hours, even longer, without the worry of someone walking in.

      Artie was already late. You could never be sure with Artie. He could be precisely on time if it was for carrying out a plan. Or else he could stand you up. But under Judd’s fretful impatience there was an almost gratified feeling. Artie, superior, should acknowledge no convention of punctuality.

      Judd touched the typewriter. He felt a dreadful reluctance to part with it, to destroy it. It was the one thing he had kept from all they had done together; it was like a token of their pact. Perhaps instead of getting rid of it, they could hide it somewhere? The brawls they had had over this machine! Artie, every time he came over, claiming by right it should have been his!

      Judd had an impulse, tender and tragic, to write a farewell note on the machine, a lone confession, taking all the blame. He could mail the note and then disappear. They would recognize the typing. If one could vanish, vanish without an act of death and yet somehow cease to be, truly vanish, dissolving into nothingness as though never even born! Would Artie feel regret? Would Artie appreciate what he had done?

      For, caught or not, Judd had a heavy presentiment that it was over now between Artie and himself. And parting with this machine would be like closing the circle.