Nicholson Baker: Vox

“Erotic license.”

“Exactly. He said, ‘But that would be terribly messy!’ I said, ‘So I’ll stand in the bathtub.’ And he said, ‘But won’t it be cold and clammy?’ So I turned the bottle of oil on its side and put it in the microwave for twenty seconds. He felt it and he shook his head and said, ‘I think it needs a full minute.’ So we leaned on the counter, looking at the microwave, while it heated the oil. When the five beeps beeped, Lawrence took it out, and we went to the bathroom together. I stood in the bathtub and pulled my shorts up high on my legs, and very solemnly he poured a little pool of olive oil on his fingers and rubbed it just above my knee.”

“He was kneeling himself?”

“Yes. The bathtub wasn’t really wet anymore — I mean it was still humid from both the showers, but we didn’t have the water running or anything. He said, ‘You’re very smooth.’ I said, ‘Thank you.’ A rather powerful smell of olive oil surrounded us, and I began to feel quite Mediterranean and Bacchic, and honestly somewhat like a mushroom being lightly sautéed. He stared at his hand going over my skin, blinking at it. I pulled the sides of my shorts up higher so he could do more of my thighs, and I said, ‘Leona is very thorough. No follicle is left unmolested.’ Then, whoops, I wondered whether that was maybe too kinky for him and whether he might think that I was trying to give him the idea that Leona had gone over the edge and waxed off all my pubic hair, horrifying thought, so I said, ‘I mean, within limits.’ He just kept on dolloping oil on his fingers and rubbing it in. After a while I turned around and held on to the showerhead and he did the backs of my legs. He wasn’t artful at all, he didn’t know how to knead the deep muscles, but I could feel the intelligence and interest in his fingers when they came to each new dry curve. His hands went right up underneath the bagginess of my shorts. I liked that. He didn’t say anything. Once I think he cleared his throat. Finally he said, ‘Okay, I think that’s everything.’ I turned around and looked down at him: he was sitting with his legs crossed, looking at my legs, very closely, really letting his eyes travel over them. He had curly hair — he needed a haircut, in fact. He had the top of the olive oil in one hand and the bottle in the other, and before he stood up he pressed the circle of the plastic top back and forth up the inside of both my legs, in a zigzag. Then he stood up and handed me the bottle. He was blushing. I smiled at him and I said, ‘Are you suffering from any sticking or clumping?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, some.’ So I pulled on the waistband of his shorts and poured about a tablespoonful of oil in there.”

“No kidding!”

“Yes, well, he looked at me with shock. And I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it if they hadn’t really been my own shorts that I’d lent him. I said, ‘I’m awfully sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. Take those off and I’ll see if I have another pair.’ So he marched that peculiar march that men do as they are taking off their pants. He was not erect by any means, but he wasn’t dormant either. I said, ‘Did the olive oil feel warm?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ So I said, ‘Would you like some more?’ and he said, ‘Maybe.’ So I held the mouth of the bottle right where his pubic hair bushed out, high on his cock, I mean near the base, not near the tip, because he was still drooping down, and I tipped it as if to pour it over him, but I didn’t actually let any come out. I just held it there. And the expectation of the warmth of the oil made his cock rise a little. I tipped the bottle even more, so that the olive oil was right in the neck, ready to pour out, but still I didn’t actually pour it. And his erection rose a little more, wanting the oil. It was like some kind of stage levitation. His hands were in little boyish fists at his sides. When he was almost horizontal, but still angling slightly downward, suddenly I poured the entire rest of the bottle over him, just glug glug glug glug glug, so that it flowed down its full cock length and fell with a buzzing sound onto the bathtub. And this was not a trivial amount of oil, this was about maybe a third of the bottle. The waste was itself exciting. It was like covering him in some amber glaze. He hurriedly moved his legs farther apart so he wouldn’t get oil spatter on his feet. By the time there were only a few last drips falling from the bottle, he was totally, I mean totally, hard. And of course with this success I had second thoughts. I almost wanted him to leave right then so that I could come in the shower by myself. I stepped out of the tub and I said, ‘Sorry, I got carried away. And the problem is, I have this darn yeast situation, so I can’t really do anything with that magnificent thing, much as I’d like to.’ He said, ‘Ah, that’s all right, I’ll just go home and take care of that myself, that’s no problem,’ he said, ‘but your tub, on the other hand, is a mess. Ask me to clean it and I will.’ I said, ‘Oh don’t worry about that, it’s just oil, it’s nothing.’ But he was on his own private trajectory, and he said, ‘That’s right, it’s oil, plus I have to say the tub is not terribly clean to begin with.’ I said, ‘No no no, don’t even think of it, really.’ He picked up an old dry Rescue pad that was in a corner and he held it up and he said, ‘Look, tell me to clean your tub.’ He’s standing there, a pantless patent lawyer, semierect, wearing my Danger Mouse T-shirt, holding the tiny curled-up green Rescue pad with a fierce expression. He wanted to clean my tub. I said, ‘Well, great. Please do. Sure.’ He asked for some Ajax, so I brought some from the kitchen, along with a folding chair so I could sit and watch. Well, this Lawrence turned out to be some kind of demon scrub-wizard. He hands me my bottles of shampoo, one by one. My tub is now naked! He squats in it, so that his testicles are practically gamboling in the giant teardrop of oil that’s on the bottom, and he takes the Ajax and he taps its rim against the edge of the tub, all the way around, so that these curtains of pale blue powder fall down the sides, kind of an aurora borealis effect, and then he moistens his Rescue pad and he starts scrubbing and scrubbing, every curve, every seam, talk about circling motions, my lord! He did the place where the shampoo bottles had been, that I’d simply defined as a safe haven for mildew, he was in there, grrr, grrrr, twisting and jamming that little sponge. Not that my tub is filthy, it isn’t, it’s just not sparkling, and there is a faint rich smell of mildew or something vaguely biological, which I kind of like, because it’s so closely associated by now with my private shower activity. But here I was watching this guy in my shower! He took down the Water Pik massage head and he rinsed off the parts he’d done, and he began to herd all the oil down the drain with hot water, and the oil and the Ajax had mixed and formed this awful stuff, like a roux first, and then when the water mixed in it became this yellow sort of foam, which didn’t daunt him, he took care of it. And then he started scrubbing his way toward the fittings, using liberal amounts of Ajax alternating with hot water. He said, ‘You don’t worry about scratching, do you?’ I said I didn’t. So he gnarled around the cold-water tap and he gnarled around the hot-water tap and he circled fiercely around the clitty thing that controls the drain, and then when the whole rest of the tub was absolutely gleaming, he went to the drain itself — he set aside the filter thing, and he reached two fingers way in, and he pulled out this revolting slime locket and splapped it against the side of the tub, and then he really went to work on that drain, around and around the rim of chrome, and deeper, right down to those dark crossbars, that I’d never gotten to, he worked the scrubber sponge in there, grrr, more Ajax, more circling, more hot water. I mean I was in a transport!”