House of Holes

by Nicholson Baker

  Polly Visits the Hall of the Penises

  Polly’s boyfriend Jeff said, “We can have a conversation about that if you want.” So they did. It was one of those “conversations” where both people are just steaming, just fuming, fighting each other for dear life—but even so they are doing everything they can to sound reasonable and fair-minded.

  The cause of the disagreement was that Jeff had liked a play they’d seen together and Polly hadn’t. Polly thought it was an hour and a half of insults, ill humor, and spurious profundities, while Jeff thought it was a work of cryptic, discombobulating genius. And what was worse, during the intermission Jeff had flirted openly with Polly’s friend Helena.

  The next morning when Polly woke up, she looked at Jeff in bed. His hair was curly—she’d always liked how thick and curly his hair was. But now his hair did nothing for her. Well, very little. What she was thinking was: If he liked that awful, awful play, then they were unsuited for each other.

  That was a Sunday, and they had a lot of laundry to do, so they went to the laundromat. Polly was trembly inside because she was pretty sure that she wanted to break up with Jeff, and he kind of knew a major thunderstorm was coming. But still they had laundry to do.

  So they were there sitting in the orange chairs, and Jeff was reading The Rooster, and Polly was looking around at people, as she did. Suddenly she saw a girl with long flaxen hair get in the dryer and close the door after herself. She thought, That’s odd. The girl didn’t reappear. Polly got up and looked in the dryer window. No girl. She went back to Jeff and she said, “Huh.”

  Jeff didn’t look up. He was reading a review of a rock concert. He never wanted to go to concerts, but he read all the reviews. “Jeff,” Polly said, “a girl just got in that dryer.”

  He looked up and frowned.

  “Will you please take a look?”

  They walked over and Jeff pulled open the dryer door. There was a pile of hot clothes inside—hot summery women’s clothes—and an oven mitt, and that was it. She noticed a little card taped next to the dryer’s controls. “HOH,” it said.

  “What’s ‘HOH’ stand for?” she asked Jeff.

  Jeff shrugged. “Hard of hearing? Water?”

  She said: “I’m not kidding, two seconds ago a girl with long straight hair climbed into this dryer.”

  “I really don’t see how she could have,” he said. He sat back down and began reading his free paper again.

  Polly shook her head in exasperation and climbed into the dryer. It was quite hot, but she could breathe okay. She pushed against the back, and she thought she felt it move. She grabbed a T-shirt from the heap of clothes, so that she wouldn’t burn her hand, and she pushed as hard as she could against the back. It made a sound like a tight rusty spring and swung open. She climbed through and fell out on some grass near a lilac bush. She was lying topless on a hill, surrounded by wildflowers. There were women walking around with backpacks and hiking boots on and no shirts on. She thought she could hear murmured sounds of sex in the air: Suck it, pound me, squeeze it, that’s it. Fortunately, she still was holding the long T-shirt she’d used to push out the back of the dryer. She put it on.

  A minute later, Jeff tumbled out of the hole in the wall behind her. He was wearing just his shirt and underpants. He sat up in the grass and looked around. It was a beautiful day, with one tiny cloud and some bunched trees off in the distance near a creek.

  “I told you,” said Polly.

  Jeff looked around. “Lots of interesting seminudity here,” he said, pleased.

  A woman appeared from behind a bush. She was wearing a very pretty long skirt—an I-want-to-go-out-on-a-wildflower-walk-with-you-and-fuck-you-later skirt—that was in kind of a forties style, with blue polka dots. She had a cute little mouth and friendly but calculating eyes and breasts shaped like breakfast muffins. She said, mostly to Jeff, “Do you need assistance?” Very sweet voice.

  “Sort of,” Polly said. “We’ve just popped on over from the laundromat.”

  The woman nodded and smiled, and then she looked down at Jeff, who was still sitting on the grass in his underpants.

  “You bad boy, you lost your pants, and I can see your dickybird,” she said. Jeff smiled goofily, looking up at her.

  Polly felt a toxic wave of jealousy and hatred and disgust, and she turned away. And that’s when she saw the most gorgeous cream-colored Cape house she’d ever seen. It had a huge wraparound porch, and it had dormer windows that reflected the sun, and it had big, softly sighing trees in front of it. Polly pointed. “I think we should go up there, Jeff,” she said.

  “I think I should stay here,” Jeff said dreamily, “so we know how to get back to the other side.” He lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky, smiling. Then he looked over at the girl in the polka-dot skirt. She was cutting bunches of white lilacs.

  “You sit out here on the grass in your underpants,” said Polly. “I’m going up to that house and investigate. We’ll meet in about an hour and a half.”

  “Sounds good,” Jeff said.

  Polly walked up the hill toward the house, fuming. A man answered the door. He said his name was Mischa, and he was quite handsome, although his ears were odd—the inner parts poked out farther than the rims, which gave him an air of studiousness. He took her to a waiting room, and then she met Lila, a cheerful busty woman who wore bifocals.

  “What do you want?” Lila asked.

  “I don’t know—a Cape house on a knoll and a husband?” said Polly.

  “Can’t help you.”

  “Then I don’t want anything,” said Polly.

  “You’re unhappy with your boyfriend because he’s acting like a shit.”

  “Yes, and he and I have different taste in plays.”

  “Do you still like men?”

  “Yes, I love men. I’ve always loved men.”

  Lila picked up the phone. “Mischa, our friend Polly needs to spend some time in the Hall of the Penises.”

  Mischa was there in a moment. He took Polly’s hand and led her to a very large room—a kind of dance studio with a refinished floor, hung all the way around with green curtains made of shot silk. One wall had enormous windows that overlooked the hills. There were two other women in the room. Polly nodded at them and they introduced themselves. One was Saucie, and one had a name like Donna.

  Polly said to Saucie, “What are those odd little bumps there in the curtains?”

  “They’re what you think they are,” said Saucie.

  Polly found a drape cord and pulled it to make some of the green fabric slide to one side. She saw many little toadlike things hanging out from holes in the wall at about crotch height. She said, “All those little brown toadlike things are penises?”

  “Yep,” said Saucie. “And balls.”

  “They go all around the room,” said Donna.

  “What are we supposed to do with them?” asked Polly.

  Saucie handed her a tasseled knee pillow. “I think we’re supposed to talk to them, or maybe even suck them off.”

  Donna whispered, “I think that one there is my husband.”

  Polly was surprised. “Is that good or bad?”

  “Not entirely sure,” said Donna.

  “And I’m guessing that one there is my ex-husband,” said Saucie.

  Then it occurred to Polly to wonder whether one of the penises was Jeff ’s. She toured the rows carefully to see if she could spot Jeff ’s organ hanging out among the crowd. But she couldn’t be sure. Which was all in all a relief. He was probably still down in the glade, she thought, chatting up the topless girl in the polka-dot skirt.

  “Do you think we should dance for them?” said Donna. Polly, feeling a little giddy, started in with a Diane Birch song, “Rise Up,” and the three women danced and sang around the room. “Rise up, little sisters!” they sang—and soon they began to notice some changes in some of the wall toads. There was a new alertness about their attitude, no question about it. Several of them had s
tarted to do a little elongational leaning-forward sort of movement.

  “I think they like us!” said Polly. The penises were in fact becoming visibly semi-erect at the sound of voices. Golly, Polly thought, I had no idea that my simple presence in a room could do that. It was kind of interesting and exciting, but also a little sad, because those penises had no clue what Polly, Donna, and Saucie were all about as women—what they believed in, what their plans were.

  Near one corner, Polly came to an empty hole. She tried to peek in, but she couldn’t see anything. “What’s up?” she said into the hole. “Are you a little reserved today?” There was silence. Then she said, “I can wait.” She looked back over her shoulder and saw Saucie kneeling on the opposite wall. Polly suspected that Saucie was in front of her ex’s penis, but it wasn’t easy to keep track. Donna was really getting into it—she was kneeling on her cushion with both hands on a wall and she was passing her face and hair all over a large, attractive petard.

  Polly turned back to her empty hole and she said, “Can you tell me something about yourself?” Suddenly a tennis ball appeared in the opening. At least she thought it was a tennis ball. When it popped through and she caught it, she felt how heavy it was, and then she knew it was the kind of ball they use in real tennis, or royal tennis, the game Henry the Eighth played.

  “So you enjoy the sport of kings?” she said. “The old jeu de paume?” And then the end of a tennis racket came through the hole. She looked at the handle. It was very worn. He had really used that racket. She held it for a second and said, “Nice racket.” Then the handle disappeared, and a bunch of purple turnips came through the hole and dangled there, held by their green tops. Polly squeezed them and she said, “I bet you could get some good blood out of these roots, you crazy fucked-up vegetarian.”

  Then the turnips disappeared. Polly looked back at Saucie and Donna. Both their heads were bobbing. They were sucking toad-in-the-hole with guiltless gusto. Polly said, “I wish I knew your name.” There was silence. She said, “I’m going to call you Chief. Okay, Chief? Do you want me to do a private dance for you, Chief?” The racket handle reappeared and it nodded slowly up and down. “I can’t unless you give me a present,” said Polly. After a moment, a little leather pouch of gold sovereigns came flying out of the hole.

  “Those look like nice pieces of money,” Polly said, “but that wasn’t exactly the present I had in mind.” She waited. “You’re supposed to put your babymaker through this hole.” There was a pause, and Polly said, “Right now, please. I want you hard or soft, doesn’t matter. Put it through, Chief, so I can see what you’ve got.”

  Finally a large dark semisoft penis flopped out through the hole. After some further fumbling, a matching ballsack was stuffed underneath. The three-pack hung there. “Hello, hello,” said Polly, somewhat surprised that the man had done what she had asked for. “Pleased to meet you, Chief Cock and Bottle Washer.”

  She had to admit to herself that it was, in fact, quite a nice-looking penis. Not intelligent looking—few penises were—but the testicles did somehow have the air of being attached to a man of substance. And Polly had always liked confident tennis players.

  “Would you enjoy it if I shook my bottom for you?” she asked. She turned and wiggled her bottom. “Now a bit of tit action!” She turned back around and flashed open her shirt for a second, so that the penis, if it had an eye, could see her bra cleavage.

  She felt out of breath, and she started talking nasty, the way she always did when she got aroused. “Do you want me to be your little suckslut?” she asked. “Hm?” She never knew where the words came from—they just came out of her. And as she talked, the penis began lifting. She said, “Ooh, you’re getting bigger for me, Chief. Yeah, yeah, I want you totally stiff for me. Is that all you have, you perverted gloryhole fucker? I want you as hard as that racket handle. Come on, baby. Do you like my mouth? Do you like my twenty-seven-year-old nasty cocksucking mouth, you twisted shitter?”

  The more she insulted the penis, the stiffer it got. It was remarkable. She said, “Do you want to see me brush my hair?” The dick nodded yes. So she got her hairbrush out of her purse. “I have lots of dark hair,” she said, “and this is how I brush it, like this. And I like to toss it around, like this. Do you like it when I pass my hair over you, Chief Cock? Hm?” She said, “I like when men look at my hair and then they go home and they beat off their gnarly dicks thinking about me brushing my hair.” She said, “But you can’t beat off, can you?” And she circled her hand around behind his balls and cock, so that she had him. “You’re stuck out here with me, and you can’t beat off, no matter how bad you want to, you hopeless sadsack dickjerker.”

  By now, after all this abuse, the penis was truly huge. “That’s quite a heavy piece of machinery you’ve got,” said Polly. “You are a fucking grotesque cuntsplitter.” She put her lips close to it. “Do you like it when a suck strumpet like me talks nasty to you with my soft red lips? Do you see how full they are and how ready they are to glue themselves onto your knob? Hm? See how ready I am to take that big stiff fleshbone and jerk it off onto these soft full lips?” The penis went boing, boing. She said, “I bet you’re crazy to see my tits, too. You can’t stand it, can you? See that? That’s my right tit. Sometimes I squeeze it a little bit. Sometimes I pinch my nipple through the fabric, mmm, like that. Sometimes I spank my tits a little bit, like this. Ouch, bad titties. They like to be spanked. Are you married?”

  The penis nodded.

  “How many kids?” Polly asked.

  The penis waggled three times.

  “You monstrosity! Three kids you’ve got? And you’re here hanging out of this hole in the wall? Can you see me?”

  The penis nodded again.

  “High-tech, are you, you sick demented voyeuristic plaster-fucker!”

  She was amazed. It was like his penis had a telescoping action—the more she taunted and reviled it, the more it kept adding intermediate sections. It was like a subway improvement project. And it had these knobby veins all over it. She couldn’t resist holding it, so she pinched the skin right underneath its head, and the whole penis immediately leapt away like a shying racehorse. “Don’t fight me now, shitbird,” she said. She pinched the skin again, harder, and rolled it between her fingers so that its monocular eye gazed crazily around the room. And then she said, “You want me to jerk you off now?”

  She really did want to wank that dick off—really wanted to jack the whole dick, from the head to the base, right off. She began fast-jacking it, using her egg-beating skills. And when her right hand got tired she switched to her left, and then she switched back to her right, and then she said, “I want you to come right here.” She touched her lips, pouted them, and resumed cock pumping, and when she looked down she could see something major happening with his ballsack. It was lifting, the prune elevator was going up, and there was serious wrinkling, and she knew that meant he was almost there. She rested for a second and then moved her hand very fast and said, “Right here on my tongue, Chief.” She pulled hard on his dick, and she could hear the Chief thump into the wall on the other side. “Let all that blookie out, slutfucker,” she said. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, and she felt his whole body course down into his penis. A spume, a trilateral spray of jizm came out like light through a prism. It was a jizm prism, split into three parts, all of them white, and some of it slapped against Polly’s cheek and some against the roof of her mouth. She could feel it running down the back of her throat, and as she was swallowing it she thought with a triumphant inner chuckle, I have just busted this man’s nut. She gave the cock a few last love jerks and then released it with a final full-length squeeze, watching it subside and draw back on itself like an aged parliamentarian. “Bye-bye, Chief,” she said, and then the penis was gone. She turned. Donna was putting on her makeup. Saucie was talking through the hole to her ex. Polly sensed someone else in the room. Jeff, her boyfriend, was standing at the door. He walked up to her and sa
w the shine of come on her face. He had a fascinated, horrified expression. Unconsciously, he checked his fly.

  “It’s all over, Jeff,” she said.

  Pendle Buys a Bathing Suit

  Pendle called up Lila and asked her how he could improve his cumshot. “Mine just kind of curves over the tip and drips off. Can you recommend some kind of herbal supplement?”

  “People talk a lot about lecithin,” said Lila, “but lecithin only takes you so far. Here’s what I’d recommend. Go buy yourself a Thompson Heftyshot bathing suit. It’s got the patented Active Grid inner pouch. Wear that around for a couple of days. It goes to work on all your glands, and you’ll be amazed. I’ve seen some sad dribblers transformed.”

  Pendle took a moment to think about that. “Where would I get this bathing suit?”

  “At Big Top Sports on O Street. The blue ones with the big yellow flowers work best.”

  Pendle went to Big Top Sports on O Street and walked down the center aisle past the vibrating kayaks. “Can I help you find something?” asked a woman in a yellow polo shirt. Her name tag said Trix, and she was a nice handful of prettiness and eyelashes.

  “Could you point me in the direction of the, ah—” Pendle consulted his notes. “Thompson Heftyshot bathing suits?”

  “Men’s?” Trix asked.

  Pendle was surprised. “There’s a women’s Heftyshot?”

  “Sure,” the girl said. “Some girls want to be gushers. They don’t understand that it’s rare. All guys shoot, but only a few girls gush.”

  “I see what you’re saying. Actually, though, I don’t shoot. That’s why I’m here. I sort of pour.”

  “Ew. Sorry, I don’t mean that. Follow me.”

  They walked next to each other, and because they weren’t talking Pendle could hear Trix’s body move. He could hear her footsteps traveling up through her legs, bunka bunka bunka bunka, and he could hear her hips going slant slant slant, and he could hear her cheery little breasts jostling in their little tit-cozies, jostle, jostle, jostle.