On the Road Sex Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #70

We decided to buy some beer and go up to Okie Frankie’s and play records. We hitched on the road with a bag of beer cans. Little Janet, Frankie’s thirteen- year-old daughter, was the prettiest girl in the world and was about to grow up into a gone woman. Best of all were her long, tapering, sensitive fingers that she used to talk with like a Cleopatra Nile dance. Dean sat in the farthest corner of the room, watching her with slitted eyes and saying, "Ye yes, yes." Janet was already aware of him; she turned to for protection. Previous months of that summer I had a lot of time with her, talking about books and little thing she was interested in. (III.6.34)

Janet makes clear the sexual differences between Dean and Sal: while Dean wants sex, Sal wants to talk.

Quote #71

"He just went for gas. He’ll be right back." I cut down to the corner and watched Dean as he kept the motor running for the waitress, who had been changing in her hotel room; in fact I could see her from where I stood, in front of her mirror, primping and fixing her silk stockings, and I wished I could go along with them. She came running out and jumped in the Cadillac. I wandered back to reassure the travel-bureau boss and the passengers. From where I stood in the door I saw a faint flash of the Cadillac crossing Cleveland Place with Dean, T-shirted and joyous, fluttering his hands and talking to the girl and hunching over the wheel to go as she sat sadly and proudly beside him. They went to a parking lot in broad daylight, parked near the brick wall at the back (a lot Dean had worked in once), and there, he claims, he made it with her, in nothing flat; not only that but persuaded her to follow us east as soon as she had her pay on Friday, come by bus, and meet us at Ian MacArthur’s pad on Lexington Avenue in New York. She agreed to come; her name was Beverly. Thirty minutes and Dean roared back, deposited the girl at her hotel, with kisses, farewells, promises, and zoomed right up to the travel bureau to pick up the crew. (III.8.8)

Sal watches and envies Dean with the waitress, just as he envies but is unable to fully participate in Dean’s "flowering" madness.

Quote #72

"Oh, that Beverly is a sweet gone little gal – she’s going to join me in New York - we’re going to get married as soon as I can get divorce papers from Camille – everything’s jumping, Sal, and we’re off. Yes!" (III.8.11)

While Sal confuses companionship with love, Dean confuses lust with love.