Ele estava nu quando quando ela o conheceu

Esta história passou-se há 53 anos e é sobre o escritor que morreu hoje: Tonight I'd meet the middleweight puncher. I was invited to Norman Mailer's party. (...) I stepped off the stairway into Norman and Adele's loft (...)

(....) Now everybody formed a street mob around Adele, looking offended and eager. It was almost as hard to watch a naked stranger as to be naked. Neither effect lasts. Shirt coming off, Norman sort of hipswayed like a rumba. Adele swept up to me again and shook me by the shoulders, her bosom bobbing in rhythm. "Take yours off," she bellowed, "and we'll see who's the best woman." I pushed her away. The men were clapping, shouting, "Take it off." Smiling at her audience, Adele started clawing at the buttons on my blouse. Shouts, cheers, like a raucous street mob. I karate-chopped at her arms. "Get away from me!" "Scared to show, little Miss Nice Cunt?" Adele tripped away, wheeled about, then came at me with a rush, a charging bull. Sidestepping, I gave her a shove. "I don't like to win so easily," I tried to sound cool. "Let's go," I yanked the Lion's paw.

By then Norman was down to white boxer shorts. He jumped up and down on their double bed.
Suddenly everybody left except two awed Upper East Side couples, the Lion and me. Norman dropped his shorts, shook them off his feet and slung them away. Then he jumped higher to make his wad go up and down for the visitors. Adele climbed up onto the bed and jumped too. Something strange happens when people take off their clothes at parties. They mean to shock. But instead they appear helpless, vulnerable, oddly shaped beggars pleading for love.
(...)
I tried to remember what the world famous novelist, Norman Mailer, looked like naked. Norman was just square, no particular waist or pectoral definition, sturdy legs large at the knees, an ordinary penis, scared balls trying to hide from all this show.
My introduction to the literary world.

Excerto do capítulo Mailer The Mauler's Strip Show - Spring 1954, da autobiografia "Sleeping With Bad Boys", de Alice Denham (Book Republic Press, 2006).
Foto: William Coupon/Corbis (Normal Mailer em 1987)