House of Holes

by Nicholson Baker

  “Oh, wow,” said Wade. He pulled off a pinecone seed and chewed it. Almost immediately he developed a huge, almost painful hard-on. “Jeez, my cock’s straining at the leash.”

  “Good,” said Koizumi. She handed him a small vial of liquid. “Now put some of this on your finger and circle it around on my anus.”

  Wade did what she asked. She clenched her bottom cheeks and did a whimpery dance on her knees. “It almost tickles,” she said. “Now drill me with your cock,” she said. “Unh, unh, unh, put it right down into me. Sink it into me, please,” she said.

  Wade found her anus and pointed the almost sharp head of his dick into it. He let some of his weight begin to drive it in. He heard a buzzing. She’d brought a little vibrator that she’d clipped to her finger.

  She began a mewing kind of chant. “Moon . . . moon . . . moon,” she said slowly. “It’s big, it’s very huge, ouch, ah, slowly, drive it in. Moon. My kundalini body likes to be fucked in the ass,” she said.

  Wade began to do hip jerks that weren’t entirely voluntary—they happened as his cock went deeper and deeper with each pull and push. Finally, he felt the cool pillows of her bottom on his hips.

  “Now please continue to fuck in and out of my asshole,” Koizumi said, “and when I come you will feel the ring tighten very hard and that is when you must come and put your seed in my bowel, so that I can push out your souvenir.”

  Wade pulled almost all the way out so that he could feel the blunt, strong rim of her sphincter clenched on his underdick.

  Koizumi was in a dream world, and Wade could hear her vibration going rum, rum, rum and her little panting sounds. She said Japanese or perhaps Sanskrit words he didn’t understand. Then he felt a sudden distinct spasm of tightness from her anus, followed by a catlike mew of orgasm. It was so primitive and pure and in a strange way mystical that his comesack clenched once, twice, three times, and he could feel the come shudders zithering down into her body.

  She collapsed and he lay on top of her, smiling. Her asshole tightened one last time and pushed Wade’s softening cock out of it.

  “Ah, a good experience,” she said. “Now we must wait. I am going to have a bath.”

  “I’ll run it for you,” said Wade.

  He rinsed off his cock, which was surprisingly clean, and then ran her a warm bath. She came in holding her stomach. “I can feel it growing in me,” she said.

  She got in the water and held Wade’s hand. After a moment’s time, she reached down and poked into herself. Then her face contorted, and her upper lip pushed out, and she drooled a little. She practically broke his fingerbones in her grip. In the water was a large brown object.

  She slumped back for a moment, resting. “That hurt very, very much, even more than your cock hurt,” she said. “But I will recover.”

  “I think you may have just crapped the bathtub,” said Wade.

  She looked up. “No, I did not ‘crap.’ That is incorrect. You will see. This is one of my sculptures. It is made of asswood.”

  She washed it off and dried it with a towel and handed it to him. The sculpture was indeed in the shape of a woman, with a wide face, made of dark polished wood.

  “It’s beautiful, I stand corrected,” said Wade.

  “I will give it to you. I have others for sale in the HOHMA gift shop. Now I will go. I enjoyed our dream. Good-bye.” She nodded to him.

  “Good-bye,” said Wade. “Thank you very much for the sculpture.”

  Henriette Surfs the Lake

  Henriette was sitting in Lila’s office. The book of men’s faces lay open and unregarded on the glass table next to her chair. Poplars were waving their little leaf shadows on the floor. “I imagine a sensual man,” Henriette said, “strong-jawed, financially secure, who understands my needs and is not threatened by them.”

  Lila snorted in disgust and flung a paper clip into a little dish. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, honey,” she said. “Can you please cut the boilerplate?”

  Henriette, slightly shocked, thought for a moment. “I guess the truth is I’m sort of bored and scared. I don’t want to go through life alone, obviously. I want a loving partner. I want a little more out of sex. I’ve made some bad choices. When I was with my ex I almost never came, because I can’t come without my vibrator and the sound of it embarrassed me. I always felt I was doing the wrong thing around him.”

  “That’s fixable,” said Lila.

  “That’s not the real problem. I can find a new guy.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “The real problem is I’ve used the darn vibrator so much lately that it’s made me numb! Not just numb, but I sometimes get really sharp tingling pains—not good tingles. Angry hurting tingles.”

  Lila picked up the phone. “Krock, could you ask Zilka to bring in the Cable of Induhash? The big spool of it, mm-hm.” She smiled at Henriette. “Go on.”

  “So, yeah, I think I’ve damaged the nerves. It’s just so hard to reach that delicious point now. I press and press, it’s like my clit is not getting good reception anymore. And honestly, is it worth the effort? And if it isn’t worth it, what is? Making a really nice soufflé, that’s satisfying. Volunteering at the park cleanup, that’s satisfying. But then there is the middle of the night, and my clitoris is just sitting there like a little numb pebble, and I’m full of filthy ideas, and I think, grrrrr!”

  Lila stood and paced. She stared out at the horizon, pon-dering. “Now Henriette,” she said finally, “you’re an attractive young woman, with lovely smooth skin, wearing a lovely short skirt.”

  “Thank you,” said Henriette, pleased.

  “It seems that you have given yourself a tiny case of sleepy clit or even—clitordynia.”

  “You mean my clit has died?”

  “No, that’s just a fancy way of saying that it hurts you sometimes. So let’s take a look under the hood.”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Henriette opened her legs and pulled her underpants to the side and showed Lila her clit.

  “How utterly precious,” said Lila. There was a knock, and she opened the door for Krock and Zilka. “Take a look at this utterly precious pussy, you two,” she said.

  “It’s nice,” said Zilka.

  Krock knelt and looked closely. “J’adore these lips,” he said. “So dark, so fleshy.”

  “That’s enough, Krock,” said Lila, kneeling too and gently pushing Krock out of the way. “Henriette has been telling me that she’s got numbness and sometimes pain in her tender clitty when she uses a vibrator. She’s much too lovely to be suffering that discomfort.” She leaned toward Henriette’s vulva. “Can I kiss it a little, hon? To get a better diagnosis.”

  “Uh—yeah,” said Henriette.

  “She did this to me, too, when I told her my clit was stolen,” said Zilka to Henriette. “What kind of vibrator do you use?”

  “A Pocket Rocket,” said Henriette. “Tangerine-colored Pocket Rocket. I just bear down, a little to the side, about here, against the sleeve.”

  Lila’s mouth made juicy kissing sounds between Henriette’s legs.

  “Oof, careful—it does hurt a bit,” said Henriette.

  “Pocket Rockets are powerful,” said Zilka. “Also they’re kind of loud. What about getting something with adjustable speeds?”

  Lila emerged from between Henriette’s legs. “That’s a yummy lemondrop you have. Tiny but nice. Curiously refreshing. My advice would be to listen to your clit. If it’s hurting, it’s telling you something. Stop with the vibrator altogether for a while. Give those battered nerve endings time to regenerate, collect their wits.”

  Henriette nodded.

  “And we’re going to help you with a dose of the House of Holes’s healing powers. You need a leg wrap with the Cable of Induhash, and you need the Belt of Jingly Bells, and you may need a squirt of my own titmilk. And you definitely also need a higher vantage. Much higher. You need perspective on your life.” She gestured
for Zilka to bring over the Cable of Induhash, which was a spool of soft yellow cord. “Can I ask what you think about when you masturbate? Krock and Zilka are going to wind this special cord around your legs. You can leave your skirt pulled up.”

  Henriette pulled her underpants back into position and considered the question. Zilka and Krock both began gently wrapping her upper thighs with soft rope. Their hands sometimes brushed against her pubic hair. “My mind’s in the gutter a lot,” Henriette said. “I’ll remember some nice old man selling magazines near the bus stop, with bushy eyebrows, and I’ll think of seducing him. Or I’ll think of being a coke addict and having to give blowjobs in bus stations for money. I’m into animals, especially horses, beautiful strong brown stallions with very glossy coats and six-pack abs, I think about washing the ends of their long penises with a soft cloth and watching them sniff at a mare and nip her neck, and I think about getting them ready to mount the breeding mount.” Henriette had a dreamy look, slouched back in the chair with her rope-wrapped thighs open. There was definitely something unusual about the Cable of Induhash, she thought—it was very pliant and soft and gripping, and she could feel a sexual current running through it. “I think about putting my hand on the underside of the stallion’s penis just at the moment when he’s coming, so that I can feel the pulses of the ejaculation forcing his hot come through the length of his penis and into the collection jar. Or into me. I’d give birth to a centaur.”

  Krock paused in his wrapping and sat back on his heels. “You’ve been watching cable.”

  “Now you’re being honest,” said Lila, unbuttoning her blouse. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  “Heights? No. I love flying. I went parasailing once in the Cayman Islands.”

  Zilka finished wrapping the cable around Henriette’s leg and then threaded it between her toes. From there she tied the end of the soft rope around one of Lila’s huge white breasts. Lila was teasing her nipple, which was very dark. “Now I’m going to squirt you with my titmilk, if I can—sometimes it’s difficult to get it to flow, and then I need a nipplerider. But let’s see. We need just a drop or two for your clit, to start the healing process. Krock, honey, will you help me lift my breast? It’s huge today.”

  Krock, grunting, lifted her breast, and Lila, leaning forward, squeezed out a tiny spray of titmilk directly onto Henriette’s clitoris. Henriette shuddered, feeling an odd sensation that wasn’t pain or pleasure, and wasn’t warm or cold. It flowed through her pelvis and made her Fallopian tubes go squirmy. “Feels like it’s working,” she said.

  “Fantastic.” Lila untied the rope end from her breast. “Now can you stand up for me? And Zilka, I’ll ask you to wrap the tinkly bells around Henriette’s pretty waist. We’re going to attack this on all fronts.” Zilka arranged the bells. Lila sat in her chair, flicking the end of the cord that led to Henriette’s legs against her crotch.

  “Thanks for doing all this,” said Henriette.

  “We’re going to get you back in the saddle, missy,” said Lila. “Now, Krock, do we have a reasonably handsome and friendly arrival who could accompany our lovely friend Henriette up to the observation tower? The really high one that looks out on the White Lake? I think she needs a rejuvenating ride on the Pussyboard.”

  “I think we can find someone,” said Krock. Henriette thanked Zilka and Lila for their help, and Krock took her through narrow passageways on a shortcut to the hotel. She heard someone practicing the drums, and she saw a man sitting on a bench eating a hot dog. As she walked, her waist belt jingled, and the jingling made people smile. Occasionally, as they passed an entryway or courtyard, she heard a sudden whoop of laughter or a stifled orgasmic cry. A large round building lit with many small lightbulbs loomed on the left. “The Merry-Go-Round,” said Krock. “That’s where the beautiful ladyboys hang out, swinging their cocks around and hoping for a brass ring.”

  They went down more streets, into another hotel lobby, and up an elevator, and they knocked at a double door. A man answered in his socks and boxers—it was Ned, the golfer. “Ned, this is Henriette. Would you be willing to take her up to one of the ultrahigh multicolored rock crags?”

  “Sure, absolutely,” said Ned. “I’ve just been sitting in here—uh, well—give me one second to get my pants on. Sorry about this.” He pulled on his jeans and buttoned up a shirt and stuffed his wallet in his back pocket and shoved his feet into his shoes. “Will I need bug spray or sunblock?”

  Krock shook his head. “Neither.”

  Ned grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the side table, and he put on his hat. “Ready, steady, go!” he said.

  They rode the elevator to the top floor of the hotel, where there was a sign that said “Observation Crags” and “Pussyboard,” with pointing-finger arrows. “Here’s as far up as I’m allowed to rise,” said Krock. “You two will go up on one of the lifts to reach an observation plateau on one of the chemical crags.” He pointed to a little yellow door. “I’ll be down here reading if you need me. You have an hour. Any questions?”

  “May I ask—what’s the Pussyboard?” asked Henriette, pointing.

  Krock gestured off in the mist. “That’s when your pussy becomes a surfboard. You glide down in that direction along a cable, in a spread-pussy harness, and you land in a lake of white rejuvenating oil. You skim along gently on your pussylips over the lake, making soft spreading ripples.”

  “Oh,” said Henriette.

  “It feels very wonderful, so I’m told, and it heals numbness. An aquatic animal lives in the lake, but he’s kind of a late riser.”

  “The Cock Ness Monster,” said Ned. “I read about him in the guidebook.”

  “Yes. And there’s a restaurant where people stand on the balcony to watch the pussyboarders come zooming downward to the lake one by one. Men, mostly Deprivos, line up afterward, if that’s what you want. It’s totally up to you. Some women feel so fresh from the lake that they want sex immediately.”

  “Got it,” said Henriette.

  She looked at Ned and Ned looked at her, and they shrugged—what the hell? Then a small cable-car gondola arrived, swaying and circling around on a metal track. The cables made gentle zinging sounds of tautness, and the door whished open. They got in, waving good-bye to Krock. The gondola rocked a little as the doors closed, and it began silently ascending toward a very high craggy tower.

  Ned and Henriette smiled embarrassedly at each other. “This is fun, I think,” said Ned.

  “It’s quiet,” said Henriette.

  “Very quiet,” said Ned.

  “Oh, look at the little herd of mountain zebra! So elegant.”

  Ned looked, but he couldn’t see them. They rose up up up, till the trees thinned out and stopped, and the mountains changed color and became turquoise and orange and red, and then they turned past a tall tower where there was a sudden dinging and an urgent pull of acceleration, and then they went higher still, through an impossibility of mist, and then finally out again into very bright deep-blue daylight. As they slowed, Henriette yawned to adjust her ears. The gondola’s door opened, and they disembarked on the flat smooth top of a crag.

  There were two chairs and a table with a linen tablecloth, and each chair had a shiny chrome double-scoped observation telescope in front of it. It was sunny and, fortunately, not too windy. The strange swooshing silence was even deeper here.

  “We’re really up high,” said Ned.

  The table was laid with some fruit, some grapes, some crackers, and a bottle of House red and two glasses. Henriette looked out, chewing a grape, letting her eyes adjust. They seemed to be about a mile up on an irregular, brittle, wind-eroded obelisk with a flat top and a low railing. There were about fifty other pillars, or spears, needling up from the clouds around them—each looking like the chemical mountains that grow in toy aquariums. The closest mountain was about five hundred yards away. Henriette spied a couple sitting on it. They, too, seemed to have a table with some delicacies set out. She waved. They waved back.r />
  “Have you got a quarter?” Henriette asked.

  “I think so,” said Ned, looking through his pockets.

  They fed some coins into the slots of their sightseeing scopes. Henriette frowned, looking through the chrome-hooded viewer. At first she had a little trouble getting the hang of it because the image hopped around, but then she learned to move slowly, and she found she could see into the haze very far away. There was a red Mustang convertible on one tower, with a sunbathing woman on top of it wearing a red bikini bottom and no top. On top of one green crag a naked man had painted a billboard with large letters that said, “Show Me.”

  “There’s a couple in this direction,” said Ned. “Looks like they’re doing stuff.”

  Henriette swiveled her binoculars around. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, the man’s got his johnny-stick out, I think. Yeah, the woman’s jerking it. Wow, fast. Now she’s blowing him. He’s having fun.”

  “Where? Dang, can’t find it,” said Henriette.

  “Way over there. I’d say he’s going to pop the oyster pretty soon.”

  Finally she found the right angle. The man was holding himself up off the chair with his hands, and the woman knelt between his splayed legs. It was difficult to see at this distance, with the colors gone all blue and pale, but she thought she saw the woman’s lips relax and a gush of sperm flow back down over her fingers.

  Ned made a little noise. “What did you think?” he asked.

  “Very nice,” she said.

  “Did you like to see her sucking on his bone?” Ned rubbed her shoulder in a friendly way.

  “Uh, sure. Have you got another quarter? Let’s find out what else is up here at the roof of the world.”

  They scanned the horizon.

  “Another couple!” said Ned excitedly. “Oh, boy. He’s doing her real nice. Mmmm-yeah, her boobs are jumping around. Jesus mama.” He shifted the direction of his scope. “And there’s a AR-24 Pornsucker ship!” He pointed excitedly. “See it? Out on a mission, sucking that pornstarch. You can tell it’s an AR-24 Recon/Pornsucker because of the red tips on its wings. That’s the giveaway. You can always tell.”