Lawrence Block - Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

“I know who it is.”

“For a minute I thought—”

“Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“What you wrote in your letter. Are you listening to me?”

“I’m all tongue.”

“What did you say?”

“Ears. I’m all ears.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“True.”

“I ought to hang up.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“If I thought you meant it—”

“Of course I meant it.”

“I mean if I thought that was as far as it would go, if it would be just that—”

“Yes?”

“I have to hang up.”

“Tits, tits, tits.”

“I’m hanging up. I can’t listen to any more of this. I’m hanging up.”

“Tits and cunt, tits and cunt—”

“Good-bye.”

“Hello? Hello, is anybody there?”

“Hello.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. It’s the girl with all the tits.”

“You make it very hard for me.”

“ Au contraire, ma cherie. You make it very hard for me. I’ve got it right here in my hand.”

“Oh, my God, the way you talk!”

“Aren’t you ashamed that you love it?”

“Oh, stop it.”

“All right.”

“...Hello?”

“I’m still here.”

“Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Oh, my God, I know what I want to say but I can’t even say it.”

“Give it another try.”

“If I thought—”

“If you thought you could trust me—”

“Yes.”

“—to just eat your juicy little cunt—”

“Yes, yes.”

“—and if you thought I would stop there and not try to screw you—”

“Yes, yes—”

“Then what?”

“Huh?”

“If you could trust me, really trust me, then what?”

“You know.”

“Then you might be interested.”

“Maybe.”

“How old are you?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Probably nothing. Don’t you remember?”

“I’m twenty-six.”

“Uh-huh. I guess you lived at home for a long time and now you have your own place.”

“How did you know?”

“The Phantom knows everything. He has spies everywhere. Are you a virgin?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Probably nothing, but I guess you don’t remember that, either, huh?”

“Suppose I am.”

“I already supposed you were. When you play with yourself, do you like to pretend your finger is a tongue?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I bet you’re playing with yourself right now.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“You can trust me, you delicious cunt.”

“Trust you? I can’t even talk to you.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been doing pretty well.”

“I have to go now.”

“Come on over and I’ll eat you.”

“But you would want to do other things.”

“That’s not what you’re afraid of.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re afraid you would want to do other things.”

“No, no, no—”

“I’ll tell you what. I won’t rape you even if you beg me to. How’s that?”

“Oh, Mary and Joseph.”

“Don’t forget St. Anthony. Do you want me to put the promise in writing?”

“You’re an awful person.”

“I’m fun in bed.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m more fun than a finger.”

“Oh—”

“I really am.”

“I have to go now.”

“I know, you have to wash your hands.”

“Good-bye.”

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“I was wondering when you’d call.”

“Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I’m not going to call you anymore.”

“And you called to tell me that?”

“Oh, you always twist everything I say.”

“Why don’t you put the phone to your pussy? I think these conversations would work better if we didn’t have to detour them through your brain.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“You put the earpiece of your phone to your cunt, and I’ll lick the mouthpiece of mine. How does that sound?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“And you’re never calling again.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you, my proud beauty.”

Well, that’s the way it went, Rozanne. I suppose you’ll call again in a day or so, but in the meantime I wanted to type all of this up and send it to you so you would be able to avoid repeating yourself in future conversations. And now that I’ve got you on the phone, in a manner of speaking, I’d like to tell you a story of what happened this past weekend.

I had a house guest. An apartment guest, really, since I don’t have a house. You might say that I don’t have much of an apartment, either. You might say that what I had this weekend — just this Saturday, actually, she arrived Saturday afternoon and left Sunday morning — was a hovel guest. The hovel was so dismal that we spent almost all of our time in bed.

My hovel guest was a fifteen-year-old girl named Naughty Nasty Nancy Hall. You might be interested to contemplate the fact that she is eleven years younger than you are and stopped being a virgin over two years ago. I don’t know what contemplating this fact will do for you, but it’s something to think about.

You may have already read something about Naughty Nasty Nancy. It gets difficult to remember just what letters I sent to what places, and of course I may have left a copy of those letters around the Xerox machine, in which case they might have passed over your desk and beneath your gaze. At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll refer to copies of past letters and include what observations I’ve already made about Naughty Nasty Nancy.

“We’re sixteen. Except Naughty Nasty Nancy, who is fifteen.”

“ ‘A mere child,’ murmured Naughty Nasty Nancy. She was one of the two in the back seat, and wore a peaked witch’s cap and granny glasses.”

“In the backseat Naughty Nasty Nancy sat directly behind Dawn. Naughty Nasty Nancy does not speak too often, but her occasional remarks are always incisive. There is a distinctly fey quality to this girl, Steve. If you were casting Hamlet, you would pick her instantly for Ophelia.”

“I couldn’t remember whether you wore jockey shorts or boxer shorts,’ Alison said, blue eyes sparkling and plump cheeks glowing. But Naughty Nasty Nancy remembered.”

“Hardly the sort of thing she’d forget,” B.J. said.

“Meow,” said Nancy Hall. She was still wearing the witch’s hat, and mordant madness danced in her eyes. “Meow, meow, meow. Look at Merry Cat, she’s positively radiant. Orgasm brings the most beatific look to her face. Are you in a state of grace, Mary Katherine?”

“...We all watched for a while, and Naughty Nasty Nancy kissed B.J. on the neck and touched her breasts, and Alison petted Naughty Nasty Nancy gently on the bottom...”