Chapter 11
Brad thought he had gotten too close to Jasmine so he decided to spend a few days away from the commune. He didn’t know that Jasmine had no possessive intentions toward him. In fact, she had also made love to Rod Green who had just moved into the room across from Brad. Rod only slept in his room once or twice a week, when wanted time away from his many girlfriends, and now he had scored with Jasmine too.
Brad
decided to spend a few nights with his brother Rich and his wife, Caroline.
By chance, he ran into his brother in
Brad
took a long swallow of his fifth
Brad said, “Remember that girlfriend I had who said she liked a Country and Western singer so much that she had to change her panties after he sang his song?”
“I believe her name was Lila. As a practicing sexologist, you were always ready to jump on an opportunity.”
“It was during my Reichian period.”
Rich remembered with ecstatic eyes, “Lila, the cow girl. I had a good time with her myself.”
“And you were still in high school you fuck-head. She was old enough to be your grandmother. 26 years old. Geez. A year older than I am now. She could have got jail time for that. I was only 19 myself. It was the first time I really became aware that they’re different from us. I mean if a man got a hard on and had an orgasm while watching a girl singing on stage and a cop spotted him, man, he would be taken downtown and his sperm would be gathered as material evidence. I can see it now. It would be placed on a slide and he would be put in a holding pen and it would be used for evidence. But if a cop did that to a woman, he would be considered a psycho.”
“I suppose he’d have to take a thousand drenched panties downtown as material evidence.”
“Women can do things they put us in jail for “
Rich said, “It’s called pussy power man. Your only alternative is to become a queer.”
“Hey. Another alternative is: Find ‘em, fuck ‘em and forget ‘em.” Brad wasn’t drunk but he wasn’t sober either. He added, with a slur, “But it’s very messy.” He closed his eyes and waved his hand as if he didn’t want to think about it anymore.
Rich opened is fifth beer. He said, “You could try marrying one. You’re getting old, man. You’re 25. You’ll be too old for the draft next year.”
“Thank God.”
“You’ve had a very messy love life Brad.”
Brad sighed, “Have I ever denied it? I’ve tried daughters, best friends, mothers, aunts, even a 53-year-old grandmother.”
“Why not try marriage?”
It was a rhetorical question. They both knew he had been obsessed with marriage for the last six years.
Rich said, “I never could figure out what you saw in the pregnant woman. I mean I was all of 16 at the time. But I still can’t figure it out.” He raised the beer can to his lips again and drank. “Do you remember that time when I pretended to deliver some mathematical papers to you, just so I could see her close up?” He broke into a peal of boyish laughter.
Brad said, “Well, you said you thought she was pretty. Very pretty.”
“She was as pretty as a ripe cantaloupe.”
“And that was all of her charm. She was a delicious 19-year-old cantaloupe.”
Rich said, “It seemed a little odd. She had a pretty face and she was radiantly healthy, but....”
“She was unbelievably sexy. Her orgasms were agonal.”
“Speak English.”
“Well, for starters, her breasts were enormous. They were swollen like gourds. Her nipples were as thick as my little finger. She used to get so worked up when I sucked them that she would let me do anything. No. That’s not right. She would beg me to do everything. She demanded everything. And she wouldn’t rest until we had done everything. And I won’t tell you the gory details either.”
“Hey. You already have. Many times. I think you’ve described every portion of that midget’s anatomy, about twenty times at least. I begged you to stop.”
They laughed again. Rich sighed. “My brother’s a pervert.”
Brad said, good naturedly, “OK fuck head, how much truth can you stand?”
Rich grabbed a paper cup and threw it at Brad’s head. Brad’s reflexes were slowed down and the cup whizzed past his ear before he could raise his arm.
Rich said, “If we’re still talking about the pregnant woman, you already told me about the face fucking. So what else is left? I mean why such a big deal?”
“I told you, the details aren’t important.”
“Listen to him.”
“Rich, if I told you the real story, your beautiful wife and mathematician Caroline would never…” He paused and cleared his throat. He added theatrically, “Unworthy as I am of the devoted esteem and admiration of my faithful mathematical friend Caroline…” He picked up the paper cup on the end table and crumpled it up, “…would never speak to me again…” he threw the wad of paper at Rich’s head, “…you fuck head.”
Rich laughed. “You’re almost as drunk as I am.”
Brad said, “For example, I’ll never tell you anything about all that wonderful butt fucking we did.”
“When Caroline gets pregnant I’ll come to you for advice.”
Brad
stared at the beer can and became serious again.
“All you have to know is that they feel ugly and undesirable. She told
me her husband was disgusted with her. Wouldn’t
touch her. Her labia were swollen and
you could see these incredible blue veins. Anyway, he had this job as an air
conditioner salesman and his territory was all of northern
Rich pretended to write on a napkin. “Refused to touch her.”
“You married guys always look like domesticated animals to me but at least you don’t have to worry about crazed air conditioner salesmen breaking into your bedroom waving revolvers in your face.”
Rich said, “Any guy who pulls a gun on you won’t live to tell the story. By the way, are you still packing all those pistols around with you? I mean at the commune.”
“Of course I am. But don’t change the subject.”
“Fine. I couldn’t find our father’s .358 magnum the other night, that’s all. I assume you’ve got it.”
“I
was fooling around with it. I wanted
to see if I could still hold on to that damn thing.
I had it down at the target range in
“I was just wondering where it was. Proceed.”
“Where was I.
Oh, yeah. Do you remember all
of those prehistoric statues of pregnant women they’ve found all over
“Yeah. What about em?”
“Well, they have this theory that they were worshipped as symbols of fertility. The women were always pregnant. My theory is that they worshipped female sexuality and that they all fucked all the time because nature makes pregnant women more sexual so that men will bond with them and be around to raise the children. And it has never stopped. Western civilization is basically cunt-struck. We aren’t a phallocracy at all, we are a cuntocracy and we’re all trying to climb back into the primal hole.”
Rich laughed. “That flies in the face of just about all the anthropological research of the last hundred years.”
“I don’t care about those people. Those professors are either cunt-struck themselves or queers. And the women’s liberation movement, most of them are cunt-struck too.”
“Words of wisdom from priapus.”
Brad smirked broadly and said, “You’re lucky to have me for a brother, man.” Brad took a long drink from the bottle, as if he was attributing his theory to the beer and needed more fuel to continue with it.
Rich said, “I feel infinitely blessed. Te Deum.”
Brad closed his eyes and lay back in the big leather chair. When he opened his eyes again, his voice was avuncular and serious. “You have to remember that all that stuff happened during my Reichean period and I took a kind of workman’s pride in those long undulating orgasms.”
“You sound like an enraptured dentist describing a pair of vibrating tonsils.”
“I’m
trying to bring some sunlight into the fustian world of female sexuality,
that’s all. All those cunt-dripping,
bodice-busting romance novels never talk about anything more anatomical than
a bulge in the pants or a darting tongue because they don’t want to admit
what they’re really doing.” He sighed
theatrically. “I suppose I’m trying
to kill the romance novel personality too, the ‘Rich Guy - Miss
“The cuntocracy. Gadz. You’re drunk.”
“I’m sober as a stiff prick.”
Rich laughed. “You got that right.”
Brad finished his fifth beer and opened another one “One of the keys to the problem is Lesbianism.”
“You’ll never convince me.” Rich shook his head. They had talked about Lesbianism many times before, when Brad was sober.
Brad said, “I’ve seen women tear into each other in ways that can’t be described by words, although I’ve tried.”
Rich said to an imaginary crowd, “Fasten your seat belts.”
“This isn’t going to be about love OR anatomy, it’s just going to be about jump-on-me-and-fuck-me stuff. I’ll save the sado-masochism stuff for later. And I’ll leave out the Greek Maenads.”
“You’re going to talk about the Reichean stuff.”
“No. Don’t put down Reich. Yes, he was crazy but I’ll always be grateful to him because he opened up that world for me. The real world of sex. It’s the world that perverts are ready to risk anything to experience.” He burped and raised his finger. “Even become perverts.”
Rich said, “I know, I know. You want to talk about the two women you saw in the parking lot proving a crucial lemma of your Cuntocracy Theorem. Be my guest.”
Brad
had just seen two women having sex in the bushes near a parking lot at Yoshi’s
restaurant on
Rich said, “You watched them in the bushes.”
Brad said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you an anatomy lesson, I’m going to talk about an epiphany.”
“An epiphany. A Lesbian act is an epiphany?”
“A Lesbian act. You sound like your mother, Rhonda Bradford the famous evangelist.”
“I forgot Brad, you’re a pagan.
“Like you, I might add.”
Rich said, “OK. Shoot. I remember you said there was a big one and a little one.”
“That’s right. The big one looked like she had never done it before and wasn’t too sure of herself and the little one looked experienced and insane with lust. I was close enough to see every detail.”
“Just like the movies. All you needed was a bag of popcorn. But I can’t believe that they went into the bushes to make love. They must have been country girls.”
Brad said, “Very funny actually. That was a nice pun. But no, I don’t know how they got there or why they were there. I told you I wasn’t going to give an anatomy lesson and I’m not giving any geography lessons either. How many beers are left anyway?”
“Two.”
Brad said, “Perfect. As I was saying. The small voluptuous one was so intense that it looked like she was putting on an act. If she had been a man I would have thought she was going to rape the big one. And that’s part of the epiphany.”
Brad looked at Rich as if he was challenging him to make another pun. Rich was judiciously silent. Brad continued, in a softer, somewhat tired voice, “Anyway, the tall one looked dubious at first but something cold and calculating seemed to drive her on. It seemed as if lust was being created in her by a force that she normally thought of as masculine and that she would normally try to resist because of its violent nature. But the fact that it was coming from a woman who was smaller and probably weaker than her somehow made it a safe encounter and so it was a kind of safe-rape.”
“How do you know all this just from watching? Maybe the big one was the experienced one and the little one was excited because she was doing it for the first time?”
“I can’t explain it. It just seemed obvious.”
“OK. I get it. It’s part of the cuntocracy. Women get to rape each other without fear of life imprisonment.”
“If you insist brother, I’ll give up. I suppose I’m too drunk to be coherent.”
“No problem Brad. Keep going, I’ll just think of it as sex therapy.” He got up and got the two remaining beers from the refrigerator.
Brad smiled. “OK. Think of it as a kind of scientific experiment if it makes you feel better.”
“Don’t make excuses. Just forge ahead.”
Brad took a deep breath as if it was a pain to have to put up with the human race. He said, in a constricted, fatigued voice. “You win. Anything you want.” He was silent for a moment, regaining his composure. “Anyway. My first surprise was that even though the small, pretty woman was obviously in heat and was in hot pursuit and looked as if she wanted to tear the other woman’s clothes to shreds, well, after the kissing started, and they began masturbating each other, it was the larger woman who went down first. The second surprise was the rutting noise that the little one made. I mean out in the open like that.”
Rich looked unimpressed.
Brad said, again, for emphasis, “They were outside, Rich.”
Rich
said, “You should have heard Caroline when we went
on that camping trip to
Brad laughed. “She was in the mountains, man. These women were just a few feet from the parking lot.”
Rich resisted making another bad pun.
Brad said, “They went into the sixty nine position.”
“They do that.”
“Are you going to shut up or what?”
“Go on.”
“As the big one was going down on the little one, the little one pulled off her panties and threw them in the air.”
“Pulled off whose panties?”
Brad looked incredulous, as if no one could possibly have misunderstood what he said. “I said, the little one pulled off her own panties.”
“Yes.”
“And they landed in the branch of a tree.”
Rich smiled. “OK. Now you’re putting me on. Come on. They landed on a branch of a tree?”
“I swear to God. Her panties flew up in the air and landed on the branch of a tree.”
They laughed.
“What happened then?”
“When they were finished, the little one looked around for her panties and I had this impulse to step out from behind the tree and tell her where they were!”
“You should have, man, you missed your chance.”
“I may be stupid, but I’m not dumb “ Brad’s legs were draped over the big arm of the leather chair and he threw his head back and laughed. “Anyway, when they finally got into their cars and drove off, I went over to the branch and took them down and they were wet and stone cold. And don’t get any ideas. I didn’t smell them. Intentionally, at least.” He added, “It was only the anatomist in me that succumbed to picking them off the branch in the first place. A cold mass of juice stained two thirds of her panties and had soaked clean though.”
Rich grimaced, “I feel like tossing my cookies.” He raised his beer bottle in a toast to the anti-barf god. “Luckily, I’m too drunk to barf. Six beers on an empty stomach I guess.”
Brad said, “It was a pataphysical experience.”
“An epiphany.”
“It just occurred to me that’s probably why they flew so far. They were so heavy. But, like I said, anatomy isn’t the important thing. I mean how many ways can you describe a wet cunt? Those goddammed plates that Judy Chicago made. I mean she’s so cunt-struck, she thinks people should eat their food while staring at a cunt.”
“Some people like to eat food from a plate with a picture of a cunt on it. It’s a free cunt-tree. Anyway, she’s probably just trying to be funny.”
Brad said, “I can’t believe it: ‘a free cunt-tree.’ I don’t know which of us is drunker.” He laughed silently. “That reminds me. You know that I think real sex is off limits in comedy. Remember Lenny Bruce? When he was at the Hungry Eye, when we were kids?”
“You were the one that snuck in Brad, not me. I was too young to pass.”
“He just started saying fuck. Fuck this and fuck that and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, and he ended up in prison. It was the women who put him there and the men locked the door because he said fuck in the presence of women.”
“Did she look for them?”
“Look for what?”
“Her panties.”
“Her panties? Not really. She just looked around for a few seconds and couldn’t see them anywhere and gave up. She seemed like the type who would imagine some poor guy jerking off with them draped around his nose.”
They paused for a moment of silence for the poor guy.
“The way they left was interesting too. The little one had a look of triumph on her face and the big one looked at her askance, as if she was a real piece of crap. They left without hardly talking to each other or even looking at each other, as if they had just closed a really good business deal and couldn’t wait to go home and tell their friends about it. They just got in their cars and drove away in different directions. It surprised me. I had the feeling that if the tall one had seen me, she would have blushed but if she could have seen the look of approval in my eye, which was involuntary, she would have been happy that I had observed it.”
Rich was surprised, “I would think that would be the most personal of experiences. I mean the kind of thing she absolutely wouldn’t want to share with anyone, certainly not with a man.”
“Women get into that. They know a lot of men like to watch them fucking each other. Even Proust has a scene where Odette and her female lover invite a man to watch them to heighten their pleasure.”
“But you don’t approve of homosexuality.”
“That’s right. It ruins marriages and sometimes keeps bad marriages together. At its best it’s pure sensualism. It’s what I’m fleeing. Pure sensualism is a blind alley. I’ve always said that if I were a raving fag, I would quit the life immediately turn to normality. At all costs.”
“But you’re not a raving fag. How would you know?”
“I’m a philosopher. Also, I would know because it’s what I’ve been doing myself for the last five years as a heterosexual. Heterosexuality is a lot easier and less messy.”
“You’ve said the opposite in the past.”
“Touché. Yes, heterosexuality is much more difficult in other ways but I’m not talking about that now, I’m talking about the horrific mess the queers get their lives into.”
“And the glint in your eye approved of what they did anyway, in spite of yourself?”
“Nietzsche defines decadence as liking what isn’t good for you. I may be decadent but I don’t have to give in to it.”
“What would mother say?”
“Fuck you, fuck head. I like watching Lesbians, not being a queer myself.” Brad looked for something else to throw at his brother’s head but he couldn’t find anything so he tossed something imaginary at him. His brother ducked and laughed. Brad said, “What do you think she would say.”
“I think it’s her coldness and distance from pleasure and sensuality that got you into womanizing in the first place. Or maybe it was Jeanette’s fault. The fact that you started having sex at the age of 10 didn’t exactly help matters.”
Brad was silent for a few long moments. Finally, he said, “You know, sometimes I think no other human being on earth has had the kind of sexual life that I have. I mean how many children are having regular sex at age 10? And then she refused to go into puberty. So all the way into high school I’m having sex with girl who has the body of a child and the mind of an adult.”
Trying to divert his brother from the path of self-pity, Rich suggested, “Let’s stay with the women in the bushes.”
Brad thought for a moment and said, “OK. Sex in the bushes. The little one. If she had seen me there watching, she would have been immensely pleased at first, but then her selfish little nature would have been outraged that I had got something for nothing. It would have set her histrionic side in motion and she would have screamed, to the horror of the big one of course.”
“Your imagination never ceases to amaze me. Was there any question of you being discovered?”
Brad stared at the remains of the last bottle of beer. He looked at the clock. “No. When is Caroline due back?”
“Sometimes she stays after class and talks. Otherwise, just about now.”
They were silent for awhile.
Rich said, “You’re drunk. You aren’t driving home, you’re sleeping here on the couch.”
Brad said, “Sometimes I get depressed. I mean, I’m afraid I’ll never find the right woman.”
“You’ve had some very bad luck in the past. It’s true. You should have married Jane. Mother’s anti-Semitism was unfortunate to say the least. And then all that traveling around after you won the Fields medal. Suddenly you were surrounded with willing women. But that’s all in the past.”
“It wasn’t so abnormal. I started where most young guys end up. Being married at 10 has its advantages and disadvantages.”
“Joyce would be perfect for you. She’s rich, beautiful and has been in love with you as long as I can remember. Why don’t you give her another chance?”
They sat there for a moment contemplating that possibility. It had always seemed logical to Brad that he should marry Dr. Orenstein’s, pretty, intelligent and wealthy niece.
Brad
said, “You know, I was reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry
again last night. You know how I feel
about her. She is one of the greatest
poets
“You
don’t know anything about her Brad. Wasn’t
she a little crazy and more than prudish?”
“No way. She was one of the sanest people in the world.
Her poetry is crystalline and more intelligent than anything I know.
It’s courageous, funny, sad, tragic, ridiculous
“Hey I thought we were going to end this on a happy note. You were so funny when you were talking about the flying panties, and now you’re getting lugubrious again.”
“Lugubrious. I like that word.” He paused for a moment, as if he were contemplating the word. “I’ve wasted seven years being fucked by women. I’m twenty-five years old Rich. I’m getting OLD.”
“Lighten up brother. You’ve eaten too much pussy that’s all.”
Brad said, “I think I hear her car.”
They were silent for a moment. Rich said, “Yeah. It’s her.”
Brad said, “If you ever cheat on that beautiful human being I’ll kill you.”