House of Holes

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House of Holes Page 9

by Nicholson Baker


  “If you’d like to give yourself pleasure privately in a different room you can do that instead.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just that you tied this handkerchief on my balls and now this. It’s happening rather fast is all I’m saying.”

  “It must happen fast,” said Lila, gesticulating. “We must clear out the old regime. The old tired ways of sperm must go. The young ones need their room to flourish.” She handed Wade a small jade cup. “Ejaculate your sweet salty hotness in that, if you like. Or in my hand. I’d love to hold your seed.” She held out her hand.

  Wade put the jade cup down. “Maybe I’m too shy to have you watch me,” he said. “Maybe I should go back home.”

  “Crackers, flash Wade your marvelous smile,” said Lila. Crackers smiled a marvelous smile. “See, you’re a prisoner now. You can’t escape. You’re going to have to come in this jade cup.”

  Lila’s hands went down to Wade’s knees, and then she slowly brought them up, touching only the hair on his thighs. Meanwhile, Crackers hooked her thumb under his cock and began moving it around.

  “Tell me about a girl you think about at night,” Lila coaxed.

  “Well, at night,” Wade said, swallowing, “sometimes I think about this girl in my Ancient Civilizations class. She listens to my ideas about the Phoenician traders, and we don’t agree but it’s okay. I’ve talked to her in the cafeteria a couple of times. She has a baggy blue T-shirt that says Froot Loops.” Crackers lightly touched Wade’s hipbones and his chest. Wade tightened his pectoral muscles when her fingers passed over them.

  “What do you imagine doing with her?” Lila asked. “Grip your cock with both hands and tell me.”

  Wade gripped his cock like a flag bearer. “I think about putting my hand up under her Froot Loops T-shirt,” he said.

  “And what about her ass?”

  “It’s sacred ground. It’s so loose and so jiggly it isn’t even funny.”

  Lila smiled at his shyness. “You’re a sweet boy, Wade, and I want to see those handsome white teeth when you come. We’re going to coax all the old jizz out of those hot young stones of yours. Don’t be shy now, let’s see you work it. I want you to look me right in the eyes and stroke that big meat wagon for me. Isn’t that a nice dingaling he has, Crackers?”

  Crackers felt Wade’s cock and smiled and nodded. “Nice,” she said.

  Wade smiled at her gratefully, then pumped himself.

  “Oh, yeah, I like when your balls hop like that in the cloth!” said Lila. “You want to see some tit cleavage to keep that dick hard? Here’s some tit cleavage for you. Make those balls jump for me. That’s it.”

  Wade stared at Lila’s boobs, one and then the other. He was as hard as a flügelhorn by now. He put his thumb on the side of his dick at the base and moved it and watched his dick wang lewdly this way and that.

  Lila leaned forward. “Pardon me, I want a whiff of that.” She tipped her nose and sniffed as Wade pointed the head of his dick at her face. “Mmmmm, that is a musky little fucker, isn’t it? Makes me want to shake my boobs around for you. Want to see them really shake? Crackers, help me free up one of these bad babies for Wade.”

  She pulled off her sweater. Underneath was a huge pink-and-white bra. She reached into one of the bra cups and pulled out something shaped a little like a baby seal. Wade had never seen anything so big and so beautiful in his life.

  “Oh, my, that’s a massive tit!” Wade said.

  Then Lila and Crackers scooped the other tit out, and Lila leaned forward, and when Wade touched the crinkly skin around her nipple she shivered and said, “My cookies are very sensitive.” She hauled the tits together and pointed them at Wade and shook them. Then she held the shallow jade cup under one of her huge pancake nipples. “Now, my young friend, empty your stones all over this nipple and fill up this cup. I want to see the miracle of your come.”

  “I don’t know if it’s going to be all that miraculous,” Wade said.

  “All orgasms are marvels, so shoot that wad for me, darlin’,” said Lila.

  Wade, pumping slower and squeezing harder, approached the moment of abandonment. He could feel his squirter chamber filling as his sack crinkled and his balls tossed everything they had in the jizz hopper. “Mgonna come, mgonna come,” he whuffled, and then he said, “Nnnnnnggggggggaaaaaaaw!” and there came the fluid catapult. His dickhole pushed open and a doublethick sackshot pitched out onto Lila’s nipple and dripped down into the jade cup.

  “Ooh, cream my tit, milk that cockmeat all over it, get it all out!” Lila said, frowning and shaking drops of come from her nipple into the cup. Then she handed Crackers the jade cup and smiled at Wade. She began putting her unforgettable wonderbreasts away.

  “Now sleep and let the magic ball-hanky do its work,” she said. “It will give you confidence.” She slid on her sweater and fluffed her hair. “Take him to the hotel,” she said to Crackers. “He’ll be staying the night.”

  Wade followed Crackers to his room, hugged her, and got into bed. The sheets were cool and clean. He slept happily and soundly with the cloth of Ka-Chiang tied around his balls.

  Cardell Buys a Gel Pen

  Cardell still wanted to meet a nice, smart, sexy woman. His best bet, he decided, was to go to a coffee shop he knew called Tribe of Bean, where women sometimes wore dresses. Cardell had noticed that when a woman wore a dress at a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon it often meant that she wanted to meet somebody. Of course, it didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to meet Cardell in particular—but she might.

  First what he needed, though, was a pen and a notebook, so that he could be absorbed in writing in his notebook in the coffee shop when a woman in a dress came in. So he went to an office-supply store, and he walked to the wall where all the pens were. A petite, fine-boned women was standing there looking over the display. She had dark hair with lots of body and bounce, and she had big eyes and a small bottom and a little black purse. She was wearing a dress—black with thin vertical stripes.

  Cardell wanted to be closer to her, so he began to move sideways. He looked at the roller-ball pens, and then moved sideways some more, to the pastel gel pens. And then he was at the metallics. He was quiet for a while, and she was quiet, as if by mutual agreement.

  Finally Cardell cleared his throat. “I’m going to the coffee shop,” he said, “and I need a pen to write with. Do you have a recommendation?”

  She pointed to the roller-balls. “If you just want to jot down notes, then I’d say go with one of those.” She had a soft, thoughtful voice, with a hint of South Carolina in it. “What kinds of things are you going to be writing?”

  “Oh,” said Cardell, “everything I want in a woman, I guess.”

  The woman looked him up and down and then said, “Is that an egg in your pocket?”

  Cardell nodded.

  “I guessed as much,” she said. “You’ll want something a little more exotic, then.” She shook the pen that she’d been holding. “These are the best.”

  Cardell glanced at the package. “Silver gel,” he said. He looked at her questioningly.

  She leaned toward him. “You know that if a man signs his name with one of these,” she whispered, “something interesting happens. When he comes, his come squirts out molten silver.”

  Cardell was surprised. “Permanently?”

  “No, for a day or two. I had a friend a while back who showed me.”

  “Do you have a friend now?”

  “Well, I have a husband,” she said. “He’s very wonderful and very successful and very jealous. Sometimes we rent a condo at the House of Holes beach, and when we’re there I get a little—ah—urgie-splurgey.” She squeezed his biceps muscle.

  Cardell thought it was time for a compliment. “Has anyone told you that you look a lot like Marlo Thomas in her prime?”

  She thanked him. “Buy the gel pen,” she said. “See you later, I hope. I’m Betsy.”

  Cardell watched her small bottom che
eks shake under the dress as she walked quickly away. He bought the pen and a notebook in a hurry. When he went out to the parking lot, her car was already gone.

  At the café he got a huge cup of coffee that he didn’t want, and he sat at a table and hauled out the notebook and tore open the packaging around the silver gel pen. He looked at the white page open in front of him, and he looked around the coffee shop. There weren’t any women in dresses. There was an old guy sitting on a couch, staring. He had a Parcheesi board open in front of him. Cardell didn’t want to play Parcheesi, so he bent over the notebook page and wrote “nice, smart, sexy ass.” He tried to sign his name, but the pen went dry halfway through. He unscrewed the top and looked down into the hole at the top of the cartridge. Then he felt a very strange warm feeling in his testicles. His whole body began to lengthen, and suddenly he was flushed right down into the tiny penhole.

  He swam blindly through silver gel particles for a minute, and when he came out at the end he was standing on a beach in front of some footprints. A sign said: “House of Holes Harbor. Swim at Your Own Risk.”

  Jessica Has Some Tattoos Removed

  Jessica went for a walk one day wearing not enough clothes. Why? Nobody knows. She didn’t know. It was summer, that was all, and she looked good and wanted the world to see. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts with wide cuffs and some striped sandals. Only the sandals were the right size.

  She walked into a store where they sold windup ears and windup noses and other windup body parts and lots of jokey decorative objects that she didn’t want to own but would be willing to give to someone as a birthday present. A man of about thirty was in the store, standing looking out at the street, seemingly lost in thought. When the door jingled to announce Jessica’s entrance, he turned toward her and started. She saw several emotions cross his face. He grasped a display of tiny stuffed monkeys to steady himself, panting.

  “Is everything okay?” Jessica asked him.

  “Yes, fine,” he said, breathing in little shallow breaths. “It’s just that when I see someone with a certain kind of beauty I can come just looking at her. Would you mind?”

  “No, go ahead,” said Jessica. “I’ll just be browsing around the store.” She turned away from him and picked up a pack of political-corruption playing cards. When she turned back she saw his eyes on her rear end. They quickly flicked up to her face, and his lips parted. A little stifled pained sigh escaped his mouth, and he leaned forward, shuddering. He wiped some spittle from his mouth.

  She went up to him. “Did it just happen?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I know it’s strange. I’m freakishly open to a certain kind of beauty. Which you have, obviously.”

  “Well, I’m glad that it worked out for you,” she said.

  He took a long, deep breath and laughed and shook his head. “I’m Bosco. I want to paint you,” he said, handing her a card. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to paint anyone more than you. What’s your name?”

  She told him.

  “Well, Jessica, I hope you’ll come to my studio sometime and take off your clothes and pose for me.”

  She thanked him, and then she hesitated. There was some-thing in his eyes of pleading and of hope that she hadn’t seen in a man before. “Where can I see your paintings?” she asked.

  He was in a group show in a gallery not far away, he said. “Do you want to go there now? That way you can see if you like my paintings.”

  “Well, sure, okay,” said Jessica.

  They walked up the street. Bosco asked Jessica what she was doing in school and whether she’d ever done any modeling before. She said she’d posed for photographers but never for a painter.

  “It’s very different,” Bosco said. “Photographers take lots and lots of pictures. Painters look at you for a long, long time and make one picture. It’s more like giving birth. Not that I know what that’s like.”

  “Me neither,” she said.

  “All in due time,” he said.

  They turned into a small track-lit gallery. There was a table with some crackers on it. Most of the dip and the carrots and celery had been eaten. She took a cracker and cracked it in her hand. “Which are yours?” she asked.

  He touched her back, directing her to a wall with five paintings. They were all of women sitting on chairs, wearing pants but not wearing anything over their breasts. Some sat relaxedly, some seemed tense. He’d caught something unusual in their expressions, which were sad and human. “I like their faces,” Jessica said.

  “Thanks, will you excuse me for a moment? My underpants are wet with my come, and I’m just going to take them off and throw them out.”

  Bosco went into the back and reemerged in a few minutes. Jessica had stood standing, looking at the women. She sensed someone looking at her, and when she turned she saw that he was staring once again.

  “Do you offer a modeling fee?” she asked, in order to preserve her dignity.

  “Name it,” he said.

  “When I modeled for the photographer, he paid me two hundred dollars.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll sell the painting for eight thousand, of which the gallery will take fifty percent. So I will gross four thousand dollars. Nothing that I paint would exist without your beauty. How about two thousand for you, two thousand for me?”

  She thought. “That’s generous. But sure, yes.”

  He nodded. “Good. Now?”

  She took a moment to reflect. “I’m kind of sweaty from walking,” she said.

  “Take a shower at my studio,” he said. He said he wouldn’t bother her or make any moves. He just wanted to paint her in her cuffed shorts, he said—but topless. “You know I’ve just had an orgasm so I’m obviously not going to wig out and attack you or something,” he said.

  Jessica said okay, and then she had a thought. There was a store across the street. “I’m just going to run in there and get some panties,” she said. “I hate getting out of the shower and putting on the same pair. Wait here.”

  She bought a three-pack of panties, and they walked four blocks over to his studio. He said that he’d been painting for fifteen years. He was a little older than she’d thought at first—maybe thirty-eight, fit and kind of craggy with a confused boyish look that she liked. Every so often as they walked he’d lean toward her and say something like, “This is the best day of my life. I’m so eager to get painting. I understand everything about beauty now, now that I’ve seen you.”

  His studio was on the third floor. There were ten chairs on one side of the room and a bunch of canvases leaning against the wall. She recognized several of the chairs from the paintings at the gallery. “I haven’t painted anyone in this chair,” he said. He positioned it on a bare stretch of floor with windowlight coming in.

  “I’ll just have a shower,” she said.

  “One thing,” he said. “When you come out, please don’t put your bra on. It leaves red marks on your skin.”

  “Okay,” she said. She went into his shower and washed using his soap and tore open the packet of panties and put one pair on. She didn’t put her bra on but just her shirt, buttoned once.

  He gestured her to a chair—white, covered in a nubby fabric. “Sit here and take off your shirt,” he said.

  Here she hesitated. “I warn you, I have tattoos,” she said.

  He froze. “You do?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “No, of course not,” he said. But he was clearly lying. She could hear the unhappiness in his voice, and she could see it in his face.

  “You’re disappointed,” she said. “Admit it.”

  “It’s just that—I haven’t yet fully come to an understanding with tattoos. They tug at my eye, and I have to resist them. They distract me from the line.”

  “Well, I have a bunch, in various places,” said Jessica. “Sometimes now I kind of wish I didn’t, but I do.”

  “Do you really want them gone?” Bosco asked eagerly. “I know a way. You g
o to this tattoo-remover man, Hax. He has a suite at the House of Holes. He removes them completely, no ghostly traces.”

  “He must charge a lot of money.”

  “It won’t cost you a thing.”

  He handed Jessica a card with a hole punched in it. “Tell Lila that you want to see Hax.”

  The address was way out along the shore. Jessica drove there, and then she saw an exit she’d never seen before, Exit 23-O, that went into a tunnel. When she came out the landscape had changed slightly. Everything had a brighter look. There was a house with several side buildings and wings and a gravel road in front of it in a horseshoe shape. She rang the doorbell.

  Zilka led her to an office and introduced her to Lila.

  “I wish my tattoos were gone,” Jessica said.

  “Why?” Lila asked.

  “They’re not right for me now. I’m done with them. I hate them.”

  “There is a way,” said Lila. “But it involves sex.”

  “It always involves sex,” said Zilka.

  “I knew it would, somehow,” said Jessica. “I suppose if that’s what it involves, that’s what it involves.”

  Lila picked up the phone. “Krock? Where’s Hax? Can you ask him to come to my office?”

  Hax looked a little like Bobby McFerrin, Jessica thought. He was tall and wore a white shirt. His shoulders weren’t enormously muscular, but wiry and graceful. There was something infinitely appealing about his shoulders.

  “Show me the tattoos you do not want,” Hax said.

  “Well, there are four.”

  “I can remove them.”

  He stood and held out his hand. “Come.” He took her to a massage room. “Undress.”

  “All the way?”

  “No, unless you have a tattoo under where your panties are.”

  “I do.”

  “Then take them off. Just common sense. I have to be able to see and touch your tattoos. Let me show you my body.” He pulled up his T-shirt. His coffee-colored chest had a bizarre overlay of blue and green patterns. “All these designs were tattooed onto women at one time. I lifted them, and now they’re on me. Such a sad thing that women tattoo themselves. It is a way of hiding.”

 

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