Lawrence Block - Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

Even with the daughters of Lancaster, the most precious angels on earth, there was no gradual pursuit. They knew the game and enjoyed playing it, and they didn’t have to be conned into anything. There were some things they had to be shown, owing to relative inexperience on their part, and it’s always fun to play teacher, especially with such willing and adept pupils, but it’s not the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I approve of the change in morals. Seduction as a steady diet is a bore. Artificial as hell, and hard on the nervous system.

Once in a while, though, I miss it. Maybe it’s ninety percent nostalgia. Still, once in a while I miss it.

So I took a long and lazy time with Rozanne. I inspected every bit of her body, turned her this way and that, kissed her here and there. A dozen times along the way she was within a couple of yards of the orgasmic goal line, and each time I would change the subject and throw her physically offside and penalize her half the distance to the goal. I kept building her up and letting her down, until she reached a point where her blood-pressure level was dangerously high.

Until finally I said, “Now I’m going to eat your cunt.”

And she said, “Thank God.”

I’ll do the Victorian novelist number and draw the veil here, old buddy. The modesty bit. Let’s just say that she got what she came for and came what she got for.

And liked it.

A little while later, after she had stopped talking about how divine she felt and how she had dreamed about this but had never, even in her dreams, imagined it would be quite this good, after she had finished bathing my ego in a salve of words, she said, “But what about you, Larry?”

“What about me?”

“I know men have needs.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But aren’t you—”

“Frustrated? Tied up in knots?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course I am. Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk a little.”

“Because there must be something I could do.”

“Later, perhaps. If you want.”

“Of course I want to help you.”

“But first let’s talk. Why is it that you’re so afraid of getting popped?”

“Getting popped?”

“Of not being a virgin anymore.”

“Oh, getting popped.”

“Right.”

“I didn’t know what you meant at first.”

“I understand. Is it that you’re afraid of getting pregnant?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Because they have pills for that sort of thing.”

“I know.”

“And they’re a hundred percent effective.”

“Oh, I know. It’s not that.”

“Some kind of sin thing? That good girls have to stay virgins until they get married?”

“No. I don’t believe that anymore.”

“Thank God.”

“I lost my faith. I suppose I’m an atheist.”

“So am I, thank God.”

“As a matter of fact, I guess I’d respect myself more if I wasn’t a virgin. I mean, it’s abnormal, being a virgin at my age.”

“It’s certainly unusual.”

“Yeah.”

“Then what is it, Rozanne?”

“Well, it’s an irrational fear.”

“Oh?”

“I went to a psychiatrist once. Actually I didn’t go to him, I went out with him on a date. We saw Plaza Suite . Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“I didn’t even know he was a psychiatrist when I dated him. Just that he was a doctor. His sister was married to my sister-in-law’s cousin.”

“Aren’t they married anymore?”

“I guess they’re still married. What difference does it make?”

“No difference at all. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“It’s okay.”

“You were saying about the psychiatrist?”

“Oh. When I wouldn’t, you know, what you said, that I wouldn’t get popped. He told me I have an irrational fear. That’s how he put it.”

“Of what?”

“Pain.”

“Pain?”

“Pain.”

“It only hurts for a minute.”

“I know that.”

“Sometimes, for a lot of girls, it never hurts at all.”

“I know that.”

“Then—”

“That’s what irrational about it. I know all that, but knowing doesn’t help. I lie awake nights thinking about getting popped and I start to cry at the thought. I guess you must think I’m pretty hopeless, huh?”

“Not at all.”

“I know people who have a thing about heights, they won’t look out a high window, they won’t even have an apartment or work in an office on a high floor. That’s another irrational fear. If I had my choice, I’d rather have that. At least I could let myself get popped like a normal human being instead of living like some kind of a nun.”

“You’ve got a problem.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Perhaps someday you’ll be able to face it,” I said gently. “But not tonight.”

“No, I guess not. No, not tonight. But—”

“What?”

“I wish I could do something for you.”

“You can.”

She licked her lips anxiously. I suspect she was thinking that what I had in mind would involve her lips, and I further suspect she was trying to decide whether it was something she really wanted to do. While she played that tape through her mind I took off my bathrobe.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

“What’s the matter?”

“The size of it. Of your, uh—”

“Cock,” I supplied. “It’s average, actually.”

“Honest to God?”

“Well, I never measured it and checked the Guinness Book of Records or anything, but I think it’s about average. It’s nothing exceptional.”

“It’s the size of a cannon.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

“It is. It would kill a woman.”

“It never killed one yet.”

“It would split a woman in half.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can touch it, you know. It won’t bite.”

“It’s as hard as a rock, too. Holy Mother of God, imagine putting this in a fifteen-year-old girl. I didn’t know they were this big.”

“They?”

“Cocks.”

She went on talking like that, handling the subject of the conversation with both hands as she talked. As you may know, Steve, you can tell a great deal about a woman by the way she handles a penis. Sometimes I think it’s a better index to sensuousness than actually fucking her. Bill Adams used to keep an abstract cock on his desk as a paperweight. It was a cylindrical iron bar. Outside of that, there was nothing particularly cocklike about it. Girls who came over to his desk almost invariably picked up the thing and fooled around with it. He did or didn’t date them on the basis of their reactions to it. A pretty good test, he always said. One day a girl picked the thing up and smacked it rhythmically against the edge of his desk as she talked. Paula, her name was, and she was the one he picked out to marry. Which tells you as much about Bill as her behavior told about Paula, come to think of it...

But to return to Rozanne. She went on with her fondling, doing a very good job of it. Her hands were soft, except for the tips of her fingers which were roughened from typing, which made a pleasant contrast. (Ellen Jamison plays the guitar, which makes for even more of a contrast.)

As she said, “What would you like me to do?”

“Well,” I said, “there is something.”

“Anything,” she said, and her eyes modified the word.

“It’s a little unusual,” I admitted, “but there’s no pain involved, certainly. I want you to get in a certain position, and then I want to just touch my cock lightly against your bottom.”

“And then what?”

“Then I’ll have an orgasm.”

“Just from that?”

“It’s all in the position you’ll be in. It’s particularly exciting to me, God knows why. Maybe I saw my parents in this position as a child or something. We could ask your friend the psychiatrist.”