The Don Quixote Piece
Scene 10

"These words are to protect me: To do what I want to do: To keep me from doing what I crave to do: What I will not do: What I refuse: What I resist, insist I will not do. I will not massage China's sartorious again as I did again this afternoon after the matinee. I will not massage it until its knots and tightnesses are massaged out of it, until the muscles of the inside of her left thigh are smooth and pliant and warm and pink with her exerted blood. I will not then palpate the rest of China's left leg, her calf and her ankles and her knees for tightnesses and knots. And I will not then move on to her right leg, massaging it, exploring the hollows and flexing and twitching and quivering of her muscles as I did this afternoon after the matinee. I will not continue then, until, moaning, China rolls in a serpentine roll and indicates slightly the tops of her thighs and quietly asks me to massage her quadriceps while her crystal green eyes--still smudged with stage make-up--watch me provokingly, as if daring me, as if goading me to use this pretense to continue my exploration of her excellent form. I will not then massage those thighs until they slope into hip, and caress the form of her hip as she extends and then parts her legs. I will not then feel the flatness of China's belly, and then in a bold but not unexpected moment stroke her mons veneris. I will not then bite China's neck as I did this afternoon after the matinee, and smell the mingled odors of apples and make- up and pepper and sweat. I will not then reach for China's small perfect breasts and feel their nipples protruding through the thin leotard. I will not then kiss her full on her pink mouth. China will not then lead me across the stage floor of my home, down a step, to the bathroom doorway, through the bathroom doorway, where posing before the mirror she will peal from herself her leotard to reveal to me her small perfect breasts, to reveal to me her excellent naked form, her perfect naked form, her body shorn of all but its essentials, her human body perfected and exaggerated to its artistic truth. China will not then stand before me so unselfconsciously naked as she did this afternoon after the matinee, so comfortably naked, so willingly naked as I unpin her strawberry blond hair and let it fall around her French eyes and face wet and slack with desire. China will not then swivel and open the shower valve and then turn and suddenly fold her arms around my now disrobed body, and kiss me hungrily. And I will not then enter the steaming shower with China, as I did this afternoon, and then wash from her the matinee, and then possess her form, and so betray myself and Beth."

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