Summary

Chapter 5:

Narration describes how, after nine years of servitude with the Kneebones, Jack becomes increasingly aware of several things. First, there is his split life - being treated as an unattractive girl at home and at work, while being seen as an attractive young man while out in the city on errands. He is particularly gratified, and sexually stimulated, when a beautiful, dark young woman holds his gaze from a doorway and calls him handsome. This makes him realize how fascinated he is by female genital anatomy and how he wants to enjoy as much of it as possible, even though he does not really know what to do with it. At the same moment, narration comments, “the whoop and clatter of commerce cottoned softer, fading into the background” (35). Second, there is his realization that he could have freed himself any number...