Pendle explained all this to Lila as well as he could. “They’d be supercharged and overdosed with horniness,” he said, “be-cause for eight days beforehand each one of them would have been imagining that eight guys were in front of her staring at her and pumping off their meatsticks, and each guy who’s pumping his meatstick would have been imagining for eight days that he was in a room with eight lovely ultrahorny women, and those women would be imagining that they’re in a room with eight ultrahorny meatsticks, and so on.”
“Gee whiz.” Lila reached for a calculator. “So far your dream involves slightly more than four thousand people,” she said.
“If it does, it does,” Pendle replied. “Actually my dream involves every woman in the world.”
“Ah, does it?”
“Yes. I want every woman in the world to see my dick. I want you to see it, for instance.”
“Not right now,” said Lila.
“You could make a movie of me holding my dick and then project it on the moon. I’d like that.”
“That’s not really our style,” said Lila, “but I like your ambition. Tell you what. Daggett! Daggett will give you a twenty-minute tour now, so you have a sense of what you’re in for, and then why don’t you go away and earn, say, thirty-five hundred dollars somehow, and come on back and we’ll give you a work-study position here. That’s a steep discount. How does that sound?”
“Good.”
Daggett gave Pendle a brief tour of the House of Holes, and then Pendle went back to where he lived. He spent three weeks earning money at a landscaping company, spreading black mulch and digging holes and spreading sod. A woman came by in a van sometimes with flats full of purple flowers. She spent all morning planting the purple flowers, and then she washed the dirt off her hands and rested. Her name was Loxie.
“Why are you working here?” Loxie asked Pendle one day. “You look like your mind’s somewhere else.”
“I’m earning money to go to the House of Holes,” said Pendle. “It’s this incredible special place where sexual things happen and you get to see women naked. But it costs a lot, lot, lot of money. So I’m saving up.”
Loxie was puzzled. “You have to go to a special house to see a woman naked?” she said. “Can’t you just walk up to a woman and say, ‘I’d like to see you naked?’ ”
Pendle was scandalized. “No, that would be rude. Plus it wouldn’t work. And anyway I wouldn’t do that unless I wanted to become boyfriend and girlfriend with her, and that sometimes leads down a long and winding road, if you know what I mean.”
Loxie shook her head. “Whoa, tell me about it.” Then she said, “Do women go to the House of Holes, not to work there as naked ladies but just to go? To meet a man?”
“Sure they do,” said Pendle. “It’s for everybody. Everybody when they’re in that late-night New York state of mind. And any guy who brings a woman gets a fifty-percent discount.”
Loxie sat for a moment, thinking. Then she sniffed. “Will you tell me something that happened at the House of Holes so I’ll know kind of what to expect? I mean, if I ever go there?”
“Let me think for a second,” said Pendle. “I just had a quick tour. One thing is you can get an ass-squeezer’s license, which is a piece of paper that allows you to walk up to any woman you like and say, like, ‘Hello, I’ve got an ass-squeezer’s license, may I squeeze your ass now?’ And she has to say yes. That on its own is worth the price of admission.”
“What happens if the girl still says no when you show her the license?”
“Then the magical clothes-dissolving wind comes up, which is a special warm breeze that comes sweeping down the middle of O Street. It dissolves her clothes to a fine dust.”
“So she’s naked,” said Loxie.
“Yes, she’s naked. Which is not a bad thing, but maybe she liked those clothes. Women really pay attention to their clothes.”
“I have to say the ass-squeezer’s license does very little for me,” said Loxie. “What else happens at the House of Holes?”
Pendle picked up a chunk of mulch and rolled it in his fingers. “There’s the Porndecahedron, which is this special twelve-screen projection theater.”
“Porn, ugh. So sick of it. What else?”
“Oh, let’s see. There are the darkrooms, where it’s all pitch-black and you talk. And there’s the International Couch. Daggett showed me that one last.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, it’s a whole lot of women from all countries, all ages, all weights, Finnish women, French, Chilean, Canadian—Toronto women are so hot, I think—and they’re all kneeling on this superlong stretch couch with their asses up, waiting, toying with their tender bits, and you get to hump your way right down the line.”
“You mean you just say hello and start fucking?” said Loxie. “Isn’t that a little cold?”
“No, it’s more like, ‘Hello, how are you today? What a lovely warm Tuesday afternoon.’ And she says, ‘Allo,’ or ‘Hi,’ and you say, ‘May I?’ And she says yes, and then you ease yourself into her for fifteen seconds, and you get the incredible sensation of those first few humps—I call them the groaners. You get that fantastic new groaning feeling, oh, oh, fuuuhck, oh, and she holds very still or maybe not, maybe she tosses her hair around, and then you pull out and give your cock a quick breather so that it doesn’t come, which it’s threatening to do, and you say, ‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ and you move down one and do it again. Groan it in.”
“Hm, I wonder how much the women enjoy the international stretch couch.”
“I think it depends on a number of factors.”
They were silent for a while. Then Loxie asked, “I take it there’s something similar for women?”
“It’s called the Squat Line. All these international dudes are lying on beach towels on the grass, aroused, with their dicks doing the Hokey Pokey, and the woman sinks down on one dude, humps him for a bit, then pulls off, goes to the next, humps that guy, etcetera.”
Loxie sat up. “The Squat Line? Don’t you think we should go together? I’d love to work my way down that line of guys and then maybe you’d be at the end, and I’d feel myself opening to take your hot wanky stick inside for a look around.”
Pendle lay back on the grass and laughed. His erection was doing obvious things in his jeans, but he didn’t care. “I wish that could happen, but I still have a thousand dollars to earn. I’ve got mulch to spread.”
“I’m a portal, silly,” said Loxie. “I thought you’d figure that out by now. Come into my van and I’ll show you my pussy. That’s the hole you’re looking for.”
Shandee Learns How to Wash a Penis
Shandee climbed the steps to the porch of the House of Holes and rang the doorbell. A dreamy leggy woman, barefoot, wearing only a man’s blue shirt and yellow wooden beads, opened the screen door. Her name tag read “Zilka—Intake and Interview.”
“I’m here to find the man who belongs to this arm,” said Shandee, holding up Dave’s arm.
Zilka, toying with her beads, looked Shandee over and led her to a waiting room, where she gave her a clipboard with a legal agreement to sign. “Lila will see you soon,” she said. “She’s the director.” She walked away.
The waiting room was empty. There were two couches and some lamps with fringed lampshades and some pictures on the wall of sheep in fields. Shandee hummed along with Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” while Dave’s arm, resting on her lap, gently stroked the back of her hand.
On the low coffee table in front of her was a pile of magazines. She began flipping through a copy of Contemporary Crochet. There were some very impressive crochet patterns—for dresses, scarves, leggings, and strange lumpy works of art—and then in the middle she came to a section called “Adult Crochet.” There followed four pages of sultry men with perfect T-shaped chest hair staring off at the horizon wearing little crocheted ballsack pouches with their semi-erections hanging through. Then there were four pages of women smiling at th
e camera and wearing crocheted thongs and crocheted bikini tops that were tiny triangles over fleshpots of breast and crinkled nipple. The world of handicrafts had changed a bit, Shandee thought.
When she looked up, Zilka was leading in another arrival, who took a seat on the couch. Shandee stole a glance at him and gasped inwardly: such a beautiful boy—ascetic looking, with a shy large toothy smile and high cheekbones and large bony knuckles and heartbreaking shoulders. His hair was cut very short. He wore a frayed sweatshirt and torn jeans. Shandee nodded at him in a friendly way and casually tossed the crochet magazine back onto the pile.
“Hey, I’m Ruzty,” he said, blushing, with a hint of a Bulgarian accent. “This is my first time here. It’s kind of a crazy thing. I was in a parking lot putting some plywood in the truck, and this girl walks up and gives me a flyer for a festival.”
“What kind of festival? I like festivals.”
“Eh, it’s a little embarrassing for me,” he said, waving and looking away. “But she had big silver earrings on her ears, and she said that the first three winners got five thousand dollars—wow! And she said if I wanted to compete in the festival I would have to go with her to the House of Holes. She was very nice to me, all whisper-whisper. Very tall, too, like a supermodel. And then she pulled out her earring from her ear and told me to look real close at the little hole.”
“The hole in her earlobe?” said Shandee.
“Yeah, so I looked real close, and then, voom, I was taken into the hole, and now here I am.”
“That’s like what happened to me,” said Shandee. She told the story of finding Dave’s arm in the quarry and how they communicated by writing notes and how Dave’s arm had made an O with his fingers. “Dave’s arm, meet Ruzty. Ruzty, meet Dave’s arm.” She held Dave’s arm out.
“Hey, dude,” said Ruzty, and gave the arm a thumb-to-thumb handshake. He smiled at Shandee—dazzling teeth. “Good for you to travel with somebody who is a friend.”
“That’s very true,” said Shandee.
Just then Zilka reappeared with two more men in tow. “This is Dune,” she said. “And this is Hax.” She handed Shandee a folded men’s blue shirt and some crocheted leg warmers. “Put these on now.” She walked away.
Shandee’s heart fluttered as she shook hands with the new arrivals: Dune, absurdly handsome in an old suede jacket, with an ironic, off-kilter smile, and Hax, West Indian, keen-eyed and devastatingly white T-shirted, with a broad forehead and long tawny dreadlocks and a light beard.
“Hello,” said Hax.
“Hey, folks,” Dune said, as he signed the form on the clipboard, after which he took several long seconds to look Shandee over. “You’re pretty, shit. Tight little body on you, too. Look at you! Your mama must be proud.” Then he cocked his head to the side. “Is that somebody’s arm you’ve got tucked away in your lap?”
Shandee told the story.
“So you’re a little bit in love, that’s sweet,” said Dune. “Makes sense to go for just an arm, though. Forget the head. Men are bullshitters. They’ll always feed you a line.”
“Hey, man,” said Hax, turning, “don’t go all loungey on the girl. Relax.”
“Loungey? Who are you, shrimp locker?”
Hax looked at him. “I’m a masseur.”
“Oh ho, a masseur.”
“And I remove tattoos as well, manually.”
“I’ve got a tattoo on my asscheek that says ‘Remember Sputnik,’ ” Dune said. “I forget why. Can you get rid of it?”
“Hey, hey,” said Ruzty, looking nervously from Dune to Hax.
“I cannot help you,” said Hax to Dune. “Only women.”
Dune snorted, then repented. “Sorry, I’ll be nice,” he said, and he looked back at Shandee. “So can your arm lover hear us chatting?” Whereupon Dave’s arm flipped the bird at him. Dune chuckled and said, “I guess so.” He picked up the copy of Contemporary Crochet and began flipping through it. “Oops, dicks in hammocks,” he said. He handed the magazine to Hax, who grunted and put it down.
To be conversational, Shandee asked Hax how he got there.
“A fine woman came up to me on the street where I sell my belt buckles,” answered Hax. “She asked me would I like to go to a handjob festival.”
“You as well!” said Ruzty.
“Me, too,” said Dune. “Smackdown. Longest cumshot wins the prize.”
“It’s a cumshot contest at a handjob festival?” said Shandee, puzzled. “Goodness, that’s rather crude.”
“Maybe it is crude, or maybe it’s very beautiful for some people to see a healthy man showing all his healthy ways by letting a woman shake her boobies for him and pull out all his jizm,” said Hax.
“Five thousand, I could pay off my motorcycle,” said Dune.
Shandee stood. “Guys, please look away for a moment, I have to change.” The three men looked politely away while Shandee took off her jeans and pulled on the leg warmers. Then she took off her shirt and put on the men’s shirt, buttoning three of its buttons.
“Okay to look now,” she said. “Ta-dah.”
“Nice!” said Hax, sitting up. Dune sprawled and smiled, lifting an eyebrow of approval. Ruzty blushed. Dave’s arm drummed his fingers.
Zilka reappeared. “Director Lila is ready to talk to you,” she said to Shandee. Together they went into the inner office. There was an oscillating fan going. Director Lila was on the phone, toying with a banana in a fruit bowl. “Well then,” she was saying, “we’ll just suck it all out. If we have to we have to.” She hung up.
“Shandee, sweetheart, I’m sorry it’s so hectic today. And this must be Dave’s arm. Yes, yes. Aren’t you cute together. May I?” Shandee handed Lila the arm, and Lila pressed Dave’s hand against her face. “Mmmm, gentle touch he has.”
“I think I’m a bit in love,” said Shandee, “and the weird thing is I don’t know what Dave looks like, or what his voice is like, or what his personality is like, or anything.”
“Ain’t that the way it is sometimes,” Lila said. “You don’t know a damn thing about them and yet you love them to pieces.” Lila gave Dave’s arm a pat, sighing, and handed it back. “There are times when I just don’t know why I’m doing all this,” she confided.
“It’s not easy for you, I would imagine,” said Shandee.
“No, it isn’t. The sex happiness of so many people—it weighs on you. We have our fun, sure, but we have our problems, too. The Pearloiner has been on a spree lately, stealing clits. She is one sick bitch. Zilka got her clit stolen clean away.”
“That’s terrible,” said Shandee.
Lila leaned forward. “That’s why she’s so vague sometimes. She’s lost her focus. And yet life does go on. You see that light?” Lila pointed to a small red light that blinked above the words PLEASURE FIRST. “Every time somebody has an orgasm somewhere in the House of Holes that light lights up. Whenever that light lights up I feel happy. I was working in hospital administration—I was seeing my friends get old, my life go by. Now I’m living. Don’t you wish you were having an orgasm right this second?”
“I guess so,” said Shandee.
“Well I do. After I have an orgasm I get so darn much work done. However.” She thought briefly, tapping her pen lightly on her nose. “Do you know how to fly an airplane?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.” Shandee waited.
“That’s too bad.” She clicked a button. “Zilka. Could you bring those three arrivals in from the waiting room?”
Shandee thought she should bring the conversation around. “So how do you think I should best go about searching for my Dave?” she asked.
“Let me muse on that further,” said Lila, taking off her bifocals. “I’ll need to hold the dear one again.” She sniffed Dave’s arm’s knuckles and pressed his hand lightly on her breast. “Hmmm. Let me just consider awhile. Mmm.”
Zilka opened the door for Hax, Ruzty, and Dune.
Lila quickly lowered Dave’s arm and looked over the crowd
. “My goodness,” she said, “this is a pleasant afternoon. Dune, hello again, you rogue. Can any of you three fly a plane?”
“I can sail a boat,” said Hax.
“I drive a stunt motorcycle,” said Dune.
“I can bend my thumbs backward, like this,” said Ruzty, demonstrating.
“That settles it. Hax and Dune, you’ll fly the pornsucker ship to Baltimore with one of the pussypilots. Daggett will give you pointers. Daggett!”
A dark-haired man appeared with a heavy bag on his back.
“Daggett, we’ve got an emergency overload,” said Lila. “We’re going to have to suck all the bad porn out of Baltimore, Maryland.”
“Not Baltimore!” said Daggett.
“Yes. Buildings and Grounds says there’s a sentient mass forming in our main settling tank. We need dilution. Take these two fine men to the pornsucker squadron right away. I will brook no delay!”
Daggett bowed and complied.
“Have fun with that dude’s arm, girls!” called Dune as they left.
“That boy is fresh,” said Lila cheerfully. “And now, Zilka, will you please help this lovely young man here, with the flexible thumbs”—she gestured at Ruzty—“to kick off his pants and lie on the massage table. It’s a nice solid table, bamboo.”
Shandee, watching out of the corner of her eye, saw Zilka begin to busy herself with removing Ruzty’s wardrobe. She was curious to see Ruzty naked, but she forced herself to look back at Director Lila. Meanwhile, Lila was frowning and squeezing the length of Dave’s arm. Eventually she said, “Shandee, here’s your best course of action. A lot of our armless men end up at the Hall of the Armless Men Who Still Want to Fuck Twat. That’s way across the salt marshes.”
“Oh, okay,” said Shandee.
“With those legs on you, you’ll have to get yourself a tall pair of waders. They’re sold on O Street, at a little place called Wade for Me. Ask for Angelo, he’s a sweetheart. He’ll measure you all over. But first I’m going to ask you to give us some help right here in Intake. Because we are busy.”