* * *
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
The obituary was in the Sunday paper. She had lived to the ripe old age of 105. The last of the Grand Dames. And I knew her way back when. Poor little rich girl, always chasing after happiness, but never finding it. Never realizing there are things that money just can't buy.
Euglena Morris had just dumped her latest husband, the Bolivian playboy. Maybe he'd cheated on her, or even worse, couldn't satisfy her allegedly insatiable physical demands. Either way, the guy was a bigtime dope. Now, you realize that this was back in the early 60s -- the Dark Ages -- and grownups talked about "scandals" in hushed voices. As for us, well, we made crude little jokes about such things in the smoking area behind wood shop at Calvin Coolidge High.
There was a name for guys who lived off wealthy widows and divorcees. A gigolo was someone who -- imagine that -- actually made money screwing women. It sounded like a damn fine idea to me, but then I was just a 15-year-old kid. A kid who was not only a virgin, but still a bit vague about the actual mechanics of what it was a man was supposed to do with a naked woman. A kid who found endlessly fascinating the notion of being paid for something that was so darkly enticing . . . and scary.
Damn, but I wanted to grow up already and be on my own. To have a girlfriend, or two, or maybe half a dozen. To have a decent job and be able to make my own choices. To be free and have money in my pocket and be respected. To be a man!
I needed some sort of plan. Yeah, that was it -- a Master Plan that would change me from a shy, pimply, bumbling teenager into a confident, sophisticated "man of the world." A program that would bring me success and renown and wealth, as well as make me irresistible to the fair sex. Step one: Body building. I needed to put on some serious muscle, so I'd have a little heft to throw around and so females would notice me. Couldn't afford a set of real weights, though, so I'd have to make my own. Got the materials from a neighbor: assorted lengths of pipe left over from a plumbing job and half a sack of ready-mix cement. Filled empty 5-lb. coffee cans with redi-mix cement and embedded a pipe on each end, one at a time. Presto -- instant barbells.
Step two: Improving personal hygiene. Showering daily seemed like more trouble than it was worth, and even brushing my teeth regularly took effort. But, hey, it was for a good cause. Didn't want the smell of my armpits to gross out the females.
Step three: Improving social skills: the fine art of not making a fool of yourself. Learning to enjoy the company of a member of the opposite sex -- being able to talk to a potential girlfriend without breaking into a cold sweat. Holding up your share of the conversation -- listening and being supportive. Learning the rudiments of navigating a dance floor without stepping on your partner's toes too many times. Learning how to kiss and touch . . . and make her burn with desire. Learning about the mysterious intimacies that come afterwards.
I wasn't about to waste time with girls my own age. They were beyond help, most of them -- immature, vain, and oh, so full of themselves. In a word, silly. But, what could you expect? They were only a couple of years past playing with dolls.
Nope, I wanted the real stuff. Older women. Experienced women. Women who didn't mess around or play games. Women who knew exactly what they wanted, and weren't shy about asking for it. But, maybe I wasn't quite ready for that. Yet.
Meanwhile, I had things to do and much to learn. . . .
Two years later I was set to go. By then I lived in a high-rise dorm along with 800 other horny eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds. I was a newly-minted freshman at Fogletown U, and, unfortunately, still a virgin. But not for too bloody much longer, if I could help it.
Euglena was still available. She hadn't remarried, and the word was, she was drinking heavily and sharing her favors with anything on two legs. By then she had to be well into her 60s and at that age lovers were apparently hard to come by, even if you had money out the wazoo. Judging from her latest choices of bedmates, she wasn't particularly choosy, either.
I was going to rescue her. Yeah, me. And, no, not out of the kindness of my heart, necessarily, but for my own nefarious purposes -- lessons in lovemaking and anatomy (female) and . . . maybe to gather up a few odds and ends of her wealth. That's right, I'd plunder her if I could, though I wouldn't be crude about it.
The age difference didn't put me off. The rich allegedly kept themselves well-preserved, and anyhow there was a certain ,i>perversity about it that turned me on. Imagine, making love to a women old enough to be my grandmother! Caressing wrinkled flesh, suckling on dried-up breasts! Losing myself in sensual abandonment with an old hag! In any event, her nether parts would still be functional enough for me to pleasure myself. And, hopefully, to give her the pleasure that she thought she still deserved.
I would be her lover and best friend and confidante and partner. Then, overwhelmed by gratitude and lust and a reasonable facsimile of love, she'd gratefully reward me for my companionship and services. First, though, there was the minor problem of getting to meet her and then insinuating myself into her confidences.
The research was the easy part. The Social Register listed her summer residence, a sort of mini-estate in a secluded mountainous area of North Carolina. The local newspaper down there had occasional job listings for service employees for her house and grounds: butlers and maids, landscapers, gardeners, and the like.
Well, I signed up for courses in botany and horticulture, figuring that this would at least qualify me for gardening work. Not that I was especially suited for that sort of thing -- the one time I had tried to grow vegetables in my mother's backyard plot they had turned brown and croaked. But, hey, what the hell.
Four months later, with multiple letters of inquiry to Euglena's majordomo still unanswered, it dawned on me that maybe I was going about this in the wrong way. But, what else could I try? Just barge in on her unannounced? Hey, what the hell.
A Greyhound bus dropped me in front of the pharmacy in Pirtlesville (pop. 243). It was, I was told, several hours' walk from there to Euglena's place.
The backpack chafed and sweat dripped off my brow as I huffed and puffed down Route 17. Nothing much to look at but telephone poles and tall weeds on the side of the road. The occasional cars and logging trucks didn't even slow down when I stuck out my thumb.
The last of the canned sardines left a gritty lump in my throat. There wasn't enough water left in the canteen to wash it down with. The sun was getting low in the sky and the blisters on my damn feet were killing me. How many more miles, damn it?
I was seriously considering giving up, just lying down by the side of the road under the nearest shady tree. Maybe a cop would come by and arrest me. At that point, the prospect of spending the night in a jail cell was starting to feel mighty tempting. Then I heard the honk of a horn.
Some guy in an expensive foreign sedan -- it looked like a Rolls Royce, maybe -- was pointing and motioning. Did he mean me? He had on some kind of uniform, like a chauffeur or something. But, hey, I didn't give a shit, as long as he was offering a ride.
"You would be bound for Morris House, I presume. If you would toss your pack into the boot and . . ."
I sank deeply into the plush leather upholstery of the long bench seat in the passenger compartment. Boy, was I tired.
The woman's voice woke me.
"What have we here, Reginald?"
"Another guest, madame."
"Looks like something the cat dragged in."
"That he does, milady. But then, most of them do."
She was there. Euglena! Looking down at me. The baroquely exotic beauty of her old-lady face excited me in a weird sort of way. I had a painfully hard erection. The chauffeur stood beside her, with a rather unpleasant smile on his face. I was under the covers of an elaborate four-poster bed. How in the hell had I gotten there?
"Poor boy," she said. "You aren't feeling well." She had laid a cool, soothing hand on my forehead. "A cup of tea would work wonders."
The tea was boiling hot, with a mildly bitter afte
rtaste. A roast beef sandwich disappeared into my mouth as if by magic. My eyelids drooped and --
I was shivering. There was an ice-cold slab beneath me, and I couldn't sit up. Couldn't move! Something was holding me back. Handcuffs! Leg irons!
An ratty old woolen blanket covered me an iron cot. A cold draft infiltrated through cracks in the corrugated iron walls of my jail. How in the hell had I gotten there?
The door creaked open, letting in a blast of icy wind. Euglena!
"Poor boy," she said. "You aren't feeling well."
Was she going to offer me another cup of tea, or what? What in the fuck was going on here?
She reached under the blanket. Under my pants. Now she really had my attention. She tossed the blanket aside and climbed onto the bed. She was kneeling across me, straddling me. She mounted me.
Looking up at her I could see, beneath the ancient crone-face, the outline of a skull. But, her dried up flesh was pumping and working me and nothing else much mattered then and there. She was slick inside (must have slathered on the lube down there) and hot, almost feverish. It was too much. My juices exploded into the dark hole between her legs.
The work wasn't all that hard. I just had to be on the lookout for Reginald. If he saw me slackening off, he'd wave his cane and make like he was going to whack me. Not that it would have much bothered me if he had -- I was solid muscle by that time. It was the damn hot sun that was hard to take.
I hadn't lasted long in the garden. The trees I replanted sickened and died and the flowers didn't sprout. So, here I was building walls. Rock walls, and I split open boulders with a 15-pound hammer for the rock facings. Reginald didn't go anywhere near me when I was holding that hammer, you betcha.
By then I was no longer in cuffs and irons. Euglena had trained me. That wondrous pussy of hers had enslaved me. It didn't occur to me that I could run away. Everything I had ever dreamed of was here.
A fool's paradise, that's what it was. I was just lazing away the days, enjoying the gentle summer breezes and the warm sunshine and building up my biceps by breaking big rocks into little rocks, then spending the long nights in wicked delights with my benefactress.
I thought . . . I thought that everything would be just perfect if she would just grant me the next level of intimacy. I'd be the happiest man alive if she would only let me . . . into her ass. One night, I was fool enough to ask it of her.
That set off the explosion. She accused me of being a foul pervert. A sodomite. A crypto-homo. A loathsome fiend who wanted only to debauch and pollute her purity. How dare I treat her like a low-class whore!
It was back into chains for me. I was a prisoner again. A slave. And, worst of all, no more wicked delights.
Thoughts of running away loomed large in my mind. But how? Vicious hounds patrolled electrified fences at the perimeter of the estate. Not to mention the minefields.
Good old Reginald came to to rescue. I knew he had a soft spot for me. Even the beatings he had administered had been done lovingly. Well, he offered me a reprieve. But, there was just one minor detail, a small price for his favors, you might say. You see, he wanted me to give him my favors -- to give to him what I had wanted from Euglena.
I thought about it for a good while over the next couple of weeks. Here I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, doing slave labor, and with a disturbingly high possibility of disappearing permanently. Maybe being quietly disposed of and buried underneath one of those rock walls I was building. Pretty much anything was better than that. Even letting Reginald do me.
It wasn't all that bad. Reggie was a skilled and considerate lover, and he broke me in gently. The trick was learning how to relax my sphincter when he inserted ("Push outward, young fellow, just as if you were emptying your bowels."). Once I got the knack of that, it didn't hurt at all. In fact, I couldn't help enjoying the sensation of a hard cock moving back and forth in my gut. I started imagining that this was what a woman feels with her lover deep inside her. And, then the pressure would build up and boil over. I would come. Fucked in the ass and liking it! I was turning into a queer!
I had to get out of here before it was too late. Escape! But, how?
By getting help from Reggie. The next time he fucked me, I sprang the trap. Every time he was ready to stop, I presented my ass to him again. Taunted him, questioned his manhood, dared him to stick it in once more. The fourth time he shot his load up into me was one time too many. He was used up. He rolled over and fell asleep. And, I reached over into his pants and fished out the key-ring.
Off came the handcuffs. Then, on they went onto Reggie's wrists. He grunted, but didn't awaken.
I let the Bentley coast down the long driveway in neutral, with the engine off. Unlocked the gate. Disabled the alarms. Then, out!
About ten miles later I abandoned the car. Pushed it over into a ditch, so it wasn't visible from the road. Walked a little further and stuck my thumb out. Got lucky. A trucker picked me up and took me most of the way to the Pirtlesville bus station. Money from Reggie's wallet bought a ticket for the long and dusty ride home.
Home. Where the heart is. Where I was safe from predatory older women and scheming butlers. Home, where, shorn of all illusions, I finished school and married the girl next door (we make love an average of 2.5 times per week, but only in the missionary position). Home, where, a number of years later, I marked Euglena's passing with a wry chuckle.
* * *
A CHANGED MAN
He saw the oncoming headlights and instinctively swerved onto the shoulder. That probably saved his life. But not his manhood.
"Your name. What's your name?" He stared up into the bright light. It hurt to look. It hurt all over. "WHAT'S . . . YOUR . . . NAME?"
"Jer- Jeremy. Everybody calls me Jerry. Jerry Morgan. What's going on? Where am I?"
"You're doing fine, Jerry. Just keep hanging in there. You're in an ambulance. We'll be at the hospital in just a few minutes."
"Doctor, I've been here a week now and nobody'll tell me what's going on. I'm still mostly numb from the waist down, but at least I can move my legs. I'll be all right, won't I? Won't I?
"Well, Jerry, in a way you've been very fortunate. If that passing motorist hadn't stopped and pulled you out of the wreck, we wouldn't be talking now. A good thing she happened to be a retired nurse, so she knew just what to do to stop the bleeding. Wrapping the shirt between your legs and cinching it tight with a belt as an emergency tourniquet was quick thinking."
"Between my legs? My . . . my . . . "
"Yes, there was some damage there. Quite extensive damage, actually. We're assessing just how much reconstructive surgery you'll need."
"Well, Jerry, in a way you've been very fortunate. The car manufacturer is offering seventy million to settle this matter out of court. That's in addition to medical expenses, of course. You'll never have to work another day in your life. However . . .
"It was a freak accident, of course, but that bolt shouldn't have sheared off like that. Then the steering column might not have buckled and caused the massive trauma to your -- your genital area. I understand that the surgeons weren't able to save much of anything down there. You have nothing at all left of your organ, and you'll be urinating through a catheter for the rest of your life. For that, and the complete loss of sexual function, seventy million is little enough. Little enough, indeed."
"Thank you, Mr. Tortfeasor. You're a damn fine lawyer, and you're worth every penny of your share of the settlement. Now that I can afford the best care money can buy, maybe the medical guys can see about fixing me up."
"So, what are my options, Dr. Smedley?"
"Well, Jerry, it doesn't look too promising. We can leave you as you are, lacking testicles and not even the stub of a penis, with an implanted catheter to enable you to empty your bladder. Hormone injections can make up for the testosterone your body can no longer produce, and this should maintain your male secondary characteristics. I'm afraid, though, that even our most heroic efforts to r
econstruct a penis would be a rather sad affair. At best, you might be able to void urine through it, but you would feel little sensation down there, and, of course, the rebuilt organ could not possibly function satisfactorily in a sexual context."
"There's nothing else you have to offer then? I'll have to give up on sex the rest of my life?" Mutilated! An object of pity! Half a man! The doctor knows damn well I have another option. I can always . . . can always put an end to what miserable remnants of life are left to me. . . .
"I hesitate to even bring up the subject, Jerry, but have you ever -- have you ever had any notions, any fantasies . . . ? Have you ever had any same-sex contacts? Have you ever had any inclinations, any urges . . . ? I don't know quite how to phrase this."
The Syntax of Seduction Page 41