From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

He could have argued that one, but it was useless to argue once it was gone, argument only drove it further away, he knew from experience you could not arouse whatever it was by argument and the best he would get would only be the ice statue again all locked up inside, and the ice statue wasnt worth even the argument let alone the energy, so he did not argue; instead he lay in the bed while she went out to fix breakfast, feeling a hot fever all over that had absolutely nothing to do with the sore side and that greatly colored the mental movies until they had nothing to do with love at all, this fever that burned up all the meat (called Love) and left only the bare bones (called whatever it was the Hays Office called it, Rut maybe, Lust probably, raw hot bloody Lust) that were the skeleton under the meat of every man’s love no matter how much they denied it, and that could be satisfied anywhere anyway anywho (although the women always stoutly refused to believe this and were therefore the Board Founders and Charter Designers of the whorehouse male and female that they decried), but that he could not get up and go satisfy now, so he just lay in the bed with the burning hot fever that had nothing to do with his sore side, and listened to her fix breakfast.