Candy

by Terry Southern

  “Eyes closed,” said Grindle firmly, and when Candy had obeyed, he sat back and surveyed the whole.

  “Good!” he said at last. “Now then. This lesson will be devoted to the transcendence of the bodily senses. Under my guidance you shall achieve the ability to master all bodily feeling. Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” whispered the closed-eyed girl. She was greatly reassured by Grindle’s tone, which was like that of an instructor in logic, but she was still flushing and somewhat annoyed with the way her pert little nips kept pulsing and pouting. Those bad little smart alecks! she thought crossly to herself.

  Great Grindle leaned forward with outstretched fingers and allowed them to play idly across the golden melon of the girl’s budding tummy. She moved a bit and even gave a little nervous laugh.

  “Now, now,” said Grindle sharply, “you’re not a child! Try to be serious! The mystic path is not an easy one—many take it, few arrive.”

  Under this admonishment the girl sobered quickly enough and tried to order her thoughts.

  “Now this is a so-called ‘erogenous zone,’” explained Grindle, gingerly taking one of the perfect little nipples which did so seem to be begging for attention between his thumb and forefinger, turning it gently back and forth.

  “I’ll say,” the girl agreed, squirming despite her efforts to be serious.

  “Yes,” said Grindle, nodding sagely, “and this too, of course,” taking the other one now, giving it a series of fondling tweaks, while the girl stirred uneasily.

  “Now then,” said Grindle, abandoning the nipples for the, moment, leaving them there, like two tiny heads, craning up eagerly, and allowing his hands to caress slowly down the wondrous arch of Candy’s delightful body, down the sides, along the hips and over the inner thighs to converge in the golden down, beneath which the fabulous lamb-pit was sweetening itself.

  “Oh gosh,” the girl murmured, as Grindle carefully turned back the rose-petal labes and revealed, in all its tiny splendor, the magnificent little jewel, the pink pearl clit, shimmering, it seemed, in absurdly delicious readiness.

  “This is another of these so-called ‘erogenous zones,’” announced Grindle contemptuously, addressing the perfect thing with his finger, giving it several gentle flicks.

  “And how,” Candy was quick to agree, fidgeting now in spite of her attempts at control.

  Great Grindle applied himself to massaging the clit adroitly.

  “Goodness . . .” said the girl in soft fretfulness, “. . . I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

  “Yes, you must master these feelings,” said Grindle easily. “One who is not master of his feelings is not master of his house—he is like the reed, tossed on the waves of chance. Tell me, how does it feel now?”

  The lovely girl’s great eyelids were fluttering.

  “Oh, it’s all tingling and everything,” she admitted despairingly.

  “First,” said Grindle, continuing the massage, “you will learn transcendence of the senses, and in that way will you soar above all sensory concern; next you will learn control of the senses, whereby you may come at will—instantaneous orgasm, untouched, at my command.”

  He stopped the massage and raised himself to his knees.

  “Open your eyes,” he said. “I will show you an example of such control. You will notice that I have caused my member to become stout and rigid—as though it were in the so-called state of ‘erection.’”

  It was true, as the girl saw soon enough—Grindle close at hand displaying his taut member, and she flushed terribly and averted her eyes.

  “No, no,” said Grindle, raising her demure chin with his hand, “do not allow vulgar sexual or material associations to bear upon the matter—it is a demonstration of perfect sensory control, I have merely willed the member to become stout and rigid. It resembles the so-called erection, does it not? In the sixth stage, one masters all such muscular control, even that which is most involuntary—thus can one, by the will of the advanced intellect, achieve what was theretofore a secret of nature. Regard how I have willed my member: no base or material desire is connected with it, yet it resembles the so-called sexual erection. Does it not?”

  The sweet girl nodded shyly, scarcely able to look.

  “Yes. Touch it,” said Grindle, “you will see for yourself.”

  He took her hand and encouraged it forward, and she touched it lightly. Being able to regard it now, impersonally, not as an object of lust but as a demonstration of spiritual advancement, made it a thing of interest to the young girl and she examined it curiously, touching it here and there, still with a certain reserve because of her past fearful associations—which she knew though, to be sure, were her own fault.

  “You can squeeze it if you like,” prompted Grindle, “. . . yes, do.”

  Candy squeezed the swollen member interestedly in her delicate grasp, and what appeared to be a drop of semen formed on the end.

  “There!” said Grindle, in a manner of triumph. “See that drop—that’s an example of glandular mastery as well! It is extremely rare. The late Rama Krishna approximated it, but did not fully achieve it in the end. I have willed the intricate chemistry and secretion of the fluid.”

  “Gosh,” said Candy, raising her beautiful eyes to the great man, her face radiant now in frank reverence.

  “Now resume the basic yoga position,” said Grindle, “and I will continue with the instruction.”

  Candy lay back again with a sigh, closed-eyed, hands joined behind her head, and Grindle resumed his fondling of her sweet-dripping little fur-pie.

  “Does the tingling sensation you referred to before continue and increase?” he asked after a moment or so.

  “. . . I’m afraid so,” said the girl sadly, panting a little.

  “And do you experience feelings of creamy warmth and a great yielding sensation?” demanded Grindle.

  “Yes,” Candy sighed, thinking he was surely psychic.

  “Now I’m going to put this member into you,” said Grindle judiciously, “and in that way can the sensation of the so-called ‘sexual act’ be approximated and surveyed to advantage.”

  “Oh gosh,” said Candy in real disquiet, unable, despite her efforts, to shake off all the old associations it had for her, “. . . do we really have to?” And, almost in reflex, she drew her marvelous thighs a bit closer together.

  “Never mind your crass and absurdly cheap philistine materialist associations with it,” said Grindle crossly, as he adjusted her legs again and ranged himself just above her. “Put those from your mind—concentrate on your Exercise Number Four, for always remember that we must bring all our mystical knowledge to converge on the issue at hand-even as does the tiger his strength, cunning, and speed.”

  “Now I am inserting the member,” he explained, as he parted the tender quavering lips of the pink honeypot and allowed his stout member to be drawn slowly into the seething thermal pudding of the darling girl.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Candy, squirming her lithe and supple body slightly, though remaining obediently closed-eyed and with her hands clasped tightly behind her head.

  “Now I shall remove the member,” said Grindle, “. . . not all the way, but just so, there, and in again. You see? And again so, I will repeat this, several times—while you do your Exercise Number Four.”

  “Gosh,” said Candy, swallowing nervously, “. . . I don’t think I can concentrate on it now.”

  “Oh yes,” said Grindle, encouraging her hips with his hands, setting them into the motion of the Cosmic Rhythm Exercise she had practiced earlier in the rec-tent. And when she had satisfactorily achieved the motion, Grindle said: “Now this, you see, approximates the so-called ‘sexual act.’”

  “I know it,” said Candy fretfully, greatly distracted by the thought.

  “I shall presently demonstrate still another mastery of glandular functions,” claimed great Grindle, “that of the so-called orgasm, or ejaculation.”

  “Oh pleas
e,” said the adorable girl, actually alarmed, “not . . . not inside me . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Grindle, breathing heavily, “naturally, in willing the chemistry of the semen, I would eliminate the impregnating agent, spermatozoa, as a constituent—for it would be of no use to our purposes here you see.”

  “Now then,” he continued after a moment, “tell me if this does not almost exactly resemble the philistine ‘orgasm’?”

  “. . . Oh gosh,” murmured the darling closed-eyed girl, biting her lip as the burning member began to throb and spurt inside her, in a hot, ravaging flood of her precious little honey-cloister whose bleating pink-sugar walls cloyed and writhed as though alive with a thousand tiny insatiable tongues, “. . . and how!”

  15

  DURING THE NEXT FEW days, in the course of instruction, it was necessary for great Grindle to enter the adorable girl with his member any number of times. It was decided, too, that because of her need for periods of uninterrupted meditation, it would be best for Candy to remain permanently in the grotto, rather than return to the camp. Grindle would visit her there from time to time, bringing food, checking her progress, and carrying on with the instruction.

  On the sixth day though, the girl seemed apprehensive when Grindle arrived.

  “Are you really sure,” she asked, wide-eyed and darling, “that you willed out all the . . . the spermatozoa from the semen?”

  “Certainly,” said Grindle with a show of impatience, “why do you ask?”

  “Because,” said Candy, lowering her voice and blushing deeply, “my . . . my period is late. And it simply never is!”

  “Ach,” said Grindle, with a grimace of distaste to reassure her, “nothing! That is nothing—in fact, it is a good sign of spiritual advancement. You have transcended the need of it, you see. You have willed it away.”

  “Oh but I wouldn’t,” said the girl, most convincingly, “I’m terribly worried when it’s late!”

  “Well, we shall see,” said great Grindle.

  The next day when he arrived he handed her an airplane ticket for Tibet.

  “Yes,” he said, “your spiritual advancement now is such that you are prepared for the highest enlightenment. You shall walk with the lamas of the holy East.”

  “Gosh,” said Candy, so awed by the idea that she forgot for the moment her earlier worry—though then was quick to remember.

  “But Good Grief—what about my period?”

  “That is of no concern,” said Grindle, with a frown of annoyance. “Spiritually advanced people do not become, how do you say, ‘pregnant.’ Besides, what does it matter? It is merely a philistine concern.”

  “Well . . .” began the sweet girl uncertainly.

  “Think no more of it whatsoever,” said Grindle, “your thoughts should be on a much higher level. You are about to walk with the holy of the holy—such thoughts would shame their very shadows.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Your plane is at 7:30—I believe we have time for one or two more exercises before your departure.”

  “Oh gosh,” sighed Candy in resignation, getting into her basic yoga position: it was certainly no joke, this mystical business, and far from being the easiest of paths for a young impressionable girl.

  Forty-eight hours later Candy was standing in the mail line at the American Express in Calcutta.

  “Anything for Candy Christian?” she asked brightly, and beamed when the dark-skinned clerk handed her two letters, one postmarked NEW YORK CITY, the other RACINE, WISCONSIN.

  She went into the lounge, and after getting a cold Coke from the dispenser, took one of the green leatherette easy chairs near the window overlooking colorful Zen Boulevard and settled comfortably to read her mail from home.

  She was sure the New York letter was from Derek, so she decided to save it till last, and she opened the other one, a delightfully scented lavender envelope addressed in the fashionable backhand of her Aunt Livia. It read:

  Gittin’ any? Hee-hee. You know I used to travel quite a bit myself. Yes, indeed; when I was in Italy! Brother! I had so much of that hot greaser dago cock that I stopped menstruating and started minestroning!

  Well, if you can be serious for a second (which I doubt—not with your little clit thumping away a mile-a-minute!) I’d just like to tell you that your fuddy-duddy old daddykins is missing in action! That’s right, kiddo, he took it on the lam, split the scent, cut on out! Where, who knows? “Cherchez la tight-pussy femme,” as Colette used to say. Anyway, due to an absurd “mix-up,” it was your Uncle Jack who was there in the bed during our last bit of funfare at the old hôpital. Natch I was hip to the lay the moment I dug his joint—you may recall I conked on it only to come up an hour later with an ass full of needles at the hands of Doktor J. O. Heeby-Jeeby himself! Well, you can bet your hot little tushy that he didn’t get off easy! He had exposed himself, and I dug the de-frocked ding-dong of his (which I’ve no doubt you know only too well!) and shouted: “Stripped for action, eh Doc? Then let ’er rip!” He was all right—a bit self-conscious though to my way of thinking. Kept wanting to “jay-o” too. But then when it was in the goodie he changed his tune quickly enough and no mistake! I put those puppy-dog tongues on him and he said: “Good Christ! Good Christ!” Then I hit him with my snapping-turtle just as he was getting his big soulful Hebe nuts off and he yelled at the top of his voice: “CHRIST WAS A JEW!” Flipped him completely, you dig? I felt pretty good about it myself—I mean, me being thirty-four, and him a young soulful-looking cat, snapping his wig like that on account of my tight slick goodie—know what I mean? No, I don’t suppose you would. Well then let me just tell you that if a woman don’t function, she ain’t shit. Think it over, kiddo.

  Anyway, I just wanted to put you in the general picture here in Racine. Do let us hear from you, Can-baby—all the best, and don’t take any wooden organ!

  AUNT LIVIA

  With the letter’s early reference to “menstruating,” Candy had been sharply reminded of her own problem in this regard and hardly took in the rest, skimming it with disapproval because of some of the questionable phrases. She put the letter away and had a few sips of Coke before opening the other. It read:

  Caught up in the sickening coil-spin of this lewd city—the waiting in bistros, the feigning, the crooked smile and the cold gray winter of sodden remorse, the bone-dry jacked-off emptiness of everything—hardly the trappings for a frothy letter of affectionate concern . . . and yet, with a nightmare grimace of hilarity frozen onto my heartbreak, do I take pen to hand and say how very much I would like to have some of your snapping-turtle puss.

  FRIEND

  Candy read and reread the letter. Was it from Derek? Parts of it, of course, were pure poetry, and Candy wondered if it hadn’t after all been written by Jack Katt or Tom Smart, perhaps the only persons in the Village capable of real poetry. And yet, it may have been automatic-writing or stream-of-consciousness from Derek! She was terribly excited at the idea, and finished her Coke in two gulps. Then she got up and went downstairs and out onto the boulevard. She had just begun walking along when she felt a sudden damp warmth down inside her little honey-pouch, and she knew her dear period had finally come! “Thank Goodness!” she said, and looked at once for a drugstore where she could get some junior Tampons. She finally spotted an herb shop and went in. The ancient native keeper was squatting on the floor smoking hemp and could not understand her at all. Candy, the shy precious, would not make the necessary gestures to convey her meaning, so at last had to leave and go back to the American Express, where she borrowed a Tampon from one of the secretaries. It was not a junior-size but a regular, and the adorable girl fretted about whether or not it would go in—but she did finally manage somehow, and then, happy and secure, she was off to the great temple at the end of Zen Boulevard.

  On the way she passed the ageless “holy man” who had been pointed out to her already as being one of the most advanced of India’s mystics—an
ash- and dung-covered old man wearing a simple loincloth, he seemed in a state of complete oblivion as he inched his way forward. Evidently, he was going to the temple too. A number of American tourists were following him along, taking pictures of him, trying to get him to pose, smile, or react in some way by offering him money and bits of bread. He seemed quite unaware of their presence however, shuffling along like a man in a trance, and when a cute little girl of six was sent up to him by one of the mothers to get his autograph, he appeared not even to see her. This caused a certain amount of bitter feeling in the crowd of tourists.

  “Well, I think that’s taking it too far,” one woman was heard to say with indignation, “to just ignore that cute little child like that! ‘Holy’ or not, that’s just plain not nice!”

  “Hole-in-the-head is more like it if my guess is any good!” said the little girl’s father, trying to comfort the child now. “It’s all right, Doreen, he’s just not a nice man!”

  It made Candy furious to see these tourists wandering around, gawking at the temples and the holy men.

  “They advertise that they want tourists,” one of the men was saying, “they tell you you’ll be welcome in their country—then we come over here, pour plenty of good dollars into the economy, and what happens? We get the cold shoulder from a bum like that! If it was the cold shoulder I was looking for, I could of gotten that in Newark! By gosh, somebody ought to punch the guy one in the snoz!”

  “Oh Tom,” said his wife, touching his arm, “he just doesn’t know any better! Didn’t you see how he refused the money?”

  “Well, he’s not too old to learn, is he? He’s a nut, if you ask me!”

  Candy wanted to scoop the holy man up in her arms and run to the temple as fast as she could. Fortunately though, at that moment the tourists began turning away toward one of the picturesque side streets.

  “We saw the Hindu rope-trick this morning,” one of the women was saying, “a little boy climbed right up into the sky and out of sight—Goodness, I’ll bet he hadn’t had a bath in a month! Why they let their children get so dirty is beyond me!”