Russell Hoban - Angelica's Grotto

‘You choose, it’s your party.’

Klein put on Portishead’s first album.

‘Not too bad, Harold. I was expecting Bach or Haydn or Engelbert Humperdinck.’ She pulled off the black jersey top; her arms were pleasingly round and her unshaven armpits delighted him; she slid the strap of her little black bra off her left shoulder and exposed one small girlish breast with its rosy areole. She undid the red skirt, dropped it, and leaned back in the chair. ‘Would you like to remove my knickers, Professor?’

He sank to his knees and took hold of the black silk with shaking hands. She was wide-hipped, with shapely thighs and a belly like a Matisse odalisque. Her black pubic hair was as he had imagined it, coarse and springy to the touch of his lips. The heat of her body and the scent of her flesh made him giddy. He rubbed his cheek against her thigh, closed his eyes, breathed in the odour of her sex.

Yum yum, said Oannes.

‘I read in this morning’s Times,’ said Melissa, ‘about an eleven-year-old boy who’s eaten nothing but Marmite sandwiches ever since he was weaned.’

‘Mmmm,’ said Klein.

‘Wandering star,’ sang Beth Gibbons, ‘ for whom it is reserved — the blackness, the darkness, the river.’

‘You’re a tiger from the neck up, Professor,’ said Melissa, now fully dressed. ‘How was it for you?’

‘Terrific: there’s nothing like getting back to basics. And you — were those sound effects real or faked?’

‘Below the waist I never lie. You’re a very cunning linguist and as I’ve told you, when I’m into anything I go with it all the way.’

‘You’re a strange one, Melissa.’

‘Life is strange. Is there a table in this house with nothing piled up on it?’

‘Down in the kitchen. There’s nothing on it but this week’s papers and a bowl of fruit. Why?’

‘Let’s go there and I’ll tell you.’

In the kitchen Klein switched on the bead-fringed lamp over the table. ‘Plenty of room,’ said Melissa. ‘I’ll sit here and you sit opposite. We’re going to arm-wrestle.’

‘Do you always do that after sex?’

‘No, but I want to see which of us is the stronger.’

‘Why? By now everybody’s stronger than I am.’

‘Tell you later. First let’s do this. Best out of three.’

Looking at her serious face in the lamplight Klein said, ‘Every day is certainly a winding road, isn’t it.’

‘Definitely. Are you ready?’

They rested their elbows on the table, lined up their forearms vertically, and laced their fingers together. Her grip was like iron.

‘Ready,’ said Klein, and his arm was immediately pressed flat. They did it once more with the same result.

‘OK,’ said Klein. ‘You’re the stronger one. What next?’

‘Back upstairs for the next event.’

When they were once again in the workroom Melissa arranged some cushions on the floor, then opened her shoulder bag. ‘We might as well have some more music, Prof.’

Klein went to the CD player, put on the Diana Krall All for You album. When he turned back to Melissa he saw what she had taken from the bag. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said.

‘You’d better believe it, ducky.’ She took off her skirt and buckled on a male member of respectable dimensions. ‘You owe me.’

‘What do I owe you?’

‘You owe me your bottom for that time you got out of your date with Leslie. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. As well as being stronger than you I’m a karate black belt, so get face-down on the floor and do what I say or I’ll hurt you.’

‘You’re going to hurt me in any case.’

‘Are you going to show fight?’

‘That would be more dangerous for me than for you.’

‘You know you want it, sweetheart. There’s no gain without pain but lubrication is included. Trousers down, bitch, this is what your prostate has been waiting for.’

‘After all our intellectual discussions you turn out to be rough trade.’

‘I’m academic trade,’ she said as she moved into position, ‘which means it isn’t over until you answer my questions on the website.’

‘Multiple choice, I hope.’

‘You have no choice, Professor — you need to talk about it as much as …’

‘O God,’ said Klein.

‘… you need to … Yes! … do it.’

‘Love makes me treat you the way that I do,’ sang Diana Krall, her silky voice all blonde and sultry. ‘Gee baby, ain’t I good to you.’

Gee baby, said Oannes.

Klein in the shower was thinking about Karl Wallenda. ‘He was seventy-three when he came off the wire,’ he said to himself, ‘a year older than I am now. Ten storeys up between two hotels in Puerto Rico when a gust of wind blew him away. That was in 1978 and ever since then he’s been dead and he’ll keep being dead from now on, rain or shine, nothing else in his diary for ever and ever.

‘I don’t remember what year it was when I last saw the Wallendas at the circus. It was in my other life, back in the States. I was there alone because I’d seen them years before and I wanted to see them again, high up on the wire and maintaining their balance while doing impossible things. Francine was at a dance class and I had no child to take with me, no excuse for being there except my own fascination with what they did.

‘High up on the wire they were, two of them on silvery bicycles and Karl sitting in a chair that was balanced on a pole between the one in front and the one behind. Was the band playing a tango? “Jalousie” maybe? Or was there silence while the Wallendas crossed from one side to the other. I don’t think there was a net. The tent was blue, the lights were on the Wallendas, darkness below them. Everything sparkled. If I slip getting out of the shower I could break my hip and that’s the beginning of the end. Wrong — I’ve already had the beginning; this would be the middle or some way past the middle. I should have a cellular phone with me at all times but I don’t want to be like the people I see talking on cellular phones. Of course this is different but I still don’t like the idea of them. It’s like drinks in the Underground; why are so many people in the trains carrying bottles of mineral water or cans of beer or soft drinks? Why this constant thirst?’

This was Wednesday. On weekdays he had grapefruit juice, bran flakes, and lemon tea at breakfast but this morning he felt the need of his Sunday breakfast: a soft-boiled egg and two slices of toast instead of the bran flakes. He injected his insulin, poured the grapefruit juice, put the kettle on, started the toast, shook a few drops of malt vinegar into the pot, put the egg in, opened the Times, and read that animals in some British zoos were on Prozac and Valium.

The phone rang; it was Melissa. ‘Yes?’ he said, immediately ready for whatever she might suggest.

‘Prof dear, around ten this evening could you go to Gallery 7 at my site, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on YES for a one-to-one? Thanks. Must run. Kisses from you-know-where.’

When he was at his desk he worked on notes for the Klimt book. ‘Pornography has always been part of the visual arts,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t recall any pornographic cave drawings but their art was more elemental, more religious — Mother-Goddess figures, fertility symbols — procreation and survival — huge breasts and buttocks — Venus of Willendorf. And the Greeks! Raunchy Athenian red-figure vase-painters drew the line at nothing. Oral sex? Can’t recall. Everything else, certainly, one-on-one and in combinations. What would those vases fetch at Sotheby’s now? The Romans weren’t far behind, look at Pompeii: probably half of them were in flagrante when Vesuvius blew. X-rated petrified corpses. India — they couldn’t get enough of it. They would have had to do Advanced-level yoga before they could even manage those positions. Krishna and the cowgirls. And the Europeans: Rembrandt did it — Vermeer? He did a brothel scene with a madame and some punters fully dressed but no hardcore. Vermeer painted moments in arrest. What would he have done with some of the ANGELICA’S GROTTO activities? The mind boggles. An authentic Vermeer of a woman in period underwear accommodating five men would set an all-time auction record. All the recent masters put their hands to pornography: Daumier, Millet, Lautrec, Picasso, Pascin. The B-List masters too: Felicien Rops and his giant willies; Bruno Schulz and the naked woman with the stallions and the little eunuch — no penetration except in the cerebral cortex. How am I going to get through the day?