“They always come back.”

“They always come back” is Henry Chinaski’s boast about women, recalled by Katherine and waved away by Henry as macho talk. Its significance lies in the gap between its easy promise of return and the coercive sexual encounters elsewhere in the narrative: the phrase turns women’s presumed return into part of Henry’s self-mythology, even when the scenes do not support that assurance.

Origin and Immediate Context

Katherine recalls the words while discussing her plans to visit: she needs to make arrangements and find someone to care for her cat. Henry tells her that everything is clear between them, and she answers by reminding him what he had said about his women. When he asks what she means, she quotes the boast back to him. Henry calls it “just macho talk,” then says he will come and make a reservation once she has sorted things out. The exchange leaves the phrase suspended between bravado and an apparently practical plan to see one another again.

Repetition and Contradiction

The phrase resurfaces in scenes that make Henry’s confidence sound less like a reliable account of what women do than a script he uses to frame sexual encounters. When Joanna calls to him as he is painting, he whirls around and grabs her by the throat, furious that she has approached him unnoticed. The episode does not show a woman returning to him; instead, it places his possessive reflex beside the remembered boast, exposing the distance between a claim of romantic certainty and the aggression through which he asserts control.

Sexual Encounters and the Limits of the Boast

Other encounters sharpen the phrase’s contradiction by showing Henry treating women’s presumed availability as a license rather than a mutual decision. With Tammie, he recognizes that she is still stoned; after she falls from the bed and lies motionless, he picks her up, kisses her viciously, and proceeds with sex, recalling her earlier promise as his justification. The scene makes the boast’s logic coercive: a prior promise and the assumption that a woman will return cannot establish present consent, especially when she is impaired and unresponsive.

Repetition and Contradiction

The phrase resurfaces in scenes that make Henry Chinaski’s confidence sound less like a reliable account of women’s choices than a script he uses to frame sexual encounters. When Joanna Dover calls to him as he is painting a huge green wolf with a red-haired woman, he whirls around and grabs her by the throat, furious that she has approached him unnoticed. The incident does not show a woman returning to him; instead, it places his possessive reflex beside the remembered boast, exposing the distance between romantic certainty and the aggression through which he asserts control.

Other encounters sharpen that contradiction by showing Henry treating presumed availability as permission rather than mutual agreement. With Tammie, he recognizes that she is still stoned; after she falls from the bed and lies motionless, he picks her up, kisses her viciously, and proceeds with sex, recalling her earlier promise as his justification. A promise made earlier cannot establish present consent, especially when she is impaired and unresponsive. The scene turns the boast’s casual certainty into a rationale for overriding the conditions before him.

The same pattern appears in Henry’s encounter with Tessie at Debra’s home. Tessie initiates a kiss, and Henry describes himself as feeling as if he were being raped; he then takes her by the hand into Debra’s bedroom, pushes her onto the bed, and has sex with her. His framing converts her initial action into a story of sexual conquest, while the boast’s confident claim about women’s return offers no account of their independent choices. The gap between what Henry says and what the scenes show is not simply a matter of bravado: it exposes how his self-description obscures the difference between a woman’s desire and his assumption of access.

With Iris Duarte, that language of possession becomes still more explicit. Henry calls her ready and a joy, describes the encounter as an assault, slaps her, and nearly tears her in half; afterward, she gets up smiling and walks to the bathroom. Her apparent composure is what the scene reports, not proof of consent or confirmation of Henry’s claims about women. The phrase therefore operates less as evidence that women inevitably come back than as a compact expression of Henry’s self-myth: it recasts women’s responses as predictable returns and places his own desire at the center of their meaning.