Rafael Yglesias - Hot Properties

So when David broke off his rough handling and stood there, his erection showing in his pants, she decided to repeat the actions of that first night and satisfy him first, with the hope that his later servicing of her could flatter her subconscious into another glorious orgasm.

And though, when she unzipped him and slowly introduced his penis into her mouth, wetting more and more of him, so she could begin to slide up and down, her tongue flicking teasingly at the head during the brief separations, she had assumed that her action implied a deal (I do this, then you go down on me), still Patty felt no surprise at David simply pulling up his pants and walking off.

She felt irritated, the way one might at a broken promise, at a friend who had agreed to accompany you to a boring event in exchange for your presence elsewhere, and stiffing you when it was his turn. But there was no moral outrage. Possibly because she had chickened out once again at trying to get all of him in her throat; because she had tickled him just under the testicles to provoke a fast ejaculation: because she had done her loving perfunctorily, simply wanting to get to the good part. Whatever the reason, a sense of injustice didn’t well up in her. She sat physically on edge but still numb and weary from the effort of fighting off her slight revulsion at blowing him, and thought: You bastard. You’re gonna leave me like this. But there was no passion in it. There was no exclamation point of outrage, or even a question mark of betrayed shock. They were simply words, a knowledge that she had gotten a bad deal, without a sense that she truly deserved better.

A few moments passed, she lost her sense of time and place exploring her hollow anger, and then she found herself reading the last few lines she had written. Her heroine was discovering her fiancé to be dull and yet was repelled by the dark Brian’s (the potentially brutal but handsome mystery man) arrogant action of simply kissing her roughly on the veranda when she turned him down for a dance, despite her desire to accept, simply because his tone implied that he took a yes for granted. They’re both David, Patty said to herself. They are both sides of him. They’re the two sides of every male. Either they bore you to tears or they drive you to tears. That’s funny. She wrote the sentence down. It made no sense where it was. Her heroine had just slapped Brian. I can make it what she thinks about hitting him, she decided, and did so. She rolled the typewriter up a little and read over the paragraph. The new line sounded flip after the solemn prose above it. She almost X’ed it out, but when she read it over again, her last line was the only line she liked.

Patty pulled the page out, put in a new sheet, and typed “Men either bore you to tears or they drive you to tears” as a sentence to begin something. A short story? A novel? A serious novel? Alone on the page, separated from her silly heroine with her silly feelings and her even sillier situation — who goes to formal balls and walks out on verandas anymore? — the sentence read grumpy; a nasty, unclever bit of whining disguised as feminism. An image of David kneeling at her feet, his tongue straining to lick her cunt, flashed into her self-disgust and excited her. She reached down and pressed her hand against her crotch. She was wet. Still wet from earlier? Or had that single image turned her on?

I should masturbate right here, she thought, and pleased herself with the devilish notion. She vividly pictured the scene: David sitting on the couch, glancing up in her direction, and seeing her, legs spread, rubbing herself to climax. What would he say? What if her silly heroine did that on the veranda after rejecting the dark Brian? This demure creature abruptly exposing herself and fingering away madly while the formal ball continued.

Damn this book, she said to herself, feeling imprisoned by it. A wave of loathing for it, for the rules of its genre, for the embarrassment of doing it, for the betrayal it represented of her sex, shuddered her resolve to write more. Patty didn’t care to identify herself as a feminist, or to get points from women for saying and believing the obvious, but still, these romance books really are beneath contempt, she decided. Writing one, forced to sit with its logic inside her head day and night, staring ahead, stony-eyed, at the narrow emotional highway her heroine was permitted, made Patty realize how much a part of the whole scene the stupid book was. She sits there and reacts to these bozos, Patty thought, enjoying her disgust. The contempt she felt was invigorating. Her brain had left a stuffy room; she could breathe the clean air of truth. It was almost as if having to think like that foolish bitch had stuck to her own brain, like cellophane to a shoe, and for months Patty had been standing idiotically on a street corner, comically shaking herself to be rid of it, until tonight, when she thought of the incredibly simple and effective idea that she could pull the stuff off with her hand.

I’m not gonna write this damn book, she decided.

She forced the dozens of questions that decision provoked out of her mind and leaned forward (I should put on some clothes. I’m freezing) and continued typing. She added to her lone sentence, writing away, without considering what her story was, concentrating instead on the scene she had imagined, namely an infuriated woman answering her mate’s insensitivity by brazenly masturbating. She was enjoying it, enjoying it the way she would have if she had had the nerve to do it herself. But as the description played itself out, she approached a fork in the road. Either her new heroine (reborn out of the ashes of sexist caricature) was fantasizing this behavior or actually doing it. Patty knew the choice would either infect or nourish the remainder of the work. Making it a fantasy would straighten and smooth the roadway, its destination sure, but perhaps the scenery would become dull and predictable. If her heroine, previously a sensible, reasonable, modestly behaved woman, was actually worn out by years of selfishness by her mate, doing it, taunting him with her own superior ability to satisfy herself … But was that true? Patty wasn’t most satisfied by bringing herself to climax. A man devoting himself to her body was her real thrill. What she had done for David was what she wanted for herself. That was the truth.

Could she write it?

Wasn’t it … in bad taste? No, she wasn’t worried about that, she was fearful of being hated for it. Men don’t want to know those things. And women, the truth is, don’t like to face them. Anyway, she reasoned, am I doing it? I have at least as much justification. Did I love myself in front of him? He’s still sitting there, stupidly reading Newstime, no doubt in an attempt to narrow his horizons even more.

I couldn’t do it. Even if I began to. I’d be too embarrassed to enjoy it. Climaxing in front of David — something she had presumably done dozens of times — seemed utterly vulgar if done by herself, especially without … without what? Without permission?

Do I need his permission to touch myself?

Jeez. I’m starting to sound like a dyke with hairy armpits. No, that’s wrong. It’s worse. That sounds like an academic who still does shave.

Sure, I need his permission to touch myself in front of him. How would I like it if he, over breakfast let’s say, opened his fly and jerked off into a napkin? Or worse, onto the tablecloth?

She burst out laughing.

“Watch it,” David said without looking up. “I don’t think those books are supposed to be funny.”

His casual, contemptuous reference to the romance genre froze her laugh. For a moment she wondered if she despised the form simply because his attitude had insinuated itself into her. No, no, I knew this was crap, she argued. David was infuriating. I should do it. Right now. Pull my panties down, and. staring into his whitish squinting face, masturbate. Who needs you, Mr. Newstime?