Nicholson Baker - House of Holes

She called the front desk. “I don’t want to come alone,” she said. “I want a forest of cocks around me. I want to see them up close — I want to wear my sunglasses and have dick juice splurt all over them. I want ball loads of hot cockslurp landing on all my soft parts. This is an emergency top-level request for dick.”

“You got it, ma’am,” said the man at the front desk. She heard him make an announcement. “H.O.H. H.O.H. Emergency H.O.H. Hotel room 313. Eighteen stiff dicks needed.”

Rhumpa heard the thumping of many feet, and then a crowd of dudes of all ages in green T-shirts arrived and began hopping out of their cargo pants. They formed an oval around the bed, where Rhumpa lay teasing herself, wearing red finger-less gloves.

“Now start ragging,” she said. “Rag on yourself as fast as you can. Faster! Faster!” The men were puffing and blowing, their cheeks pink, a fine sheen of strain on their foreheads. “Who’s first?” Rhumpa said. A little man of about forty-five wearing a baseball cap said, “I’m gonna juice big-time!” Rhumpa grabbed the back of his leg and pulled him close. “Come all over these britneys,” she said. “They need it, shoot right here.” She pinched her nipples and pointed them around the crowd. “Here it comes!” the man croaked, and a long whipflick of silly string curved through the sparkling air.

Then one very hairy man pulled off Rhumpa’s panties and clapped them to his nose and went, “Aaaah!” He jerked out his putz and splashed on her pussyfloss.

“Next! I need more come — more come!” Rhumpa said.

Just then Daggett burst in, naked, wild-eyed, with Rhumpa’s former bra twisted around his huge purple erection.

“Daggett!” she said. She clapped her hand over her breasts.

“I don’t care, I need to see them, I don’t care.”

She let her hands fall, and he stared feastingly at her breasts while he slowly unwrapped the straps of her bra from his pulsing hellhound. He waved the other men back. “Take me and fuck me good!” Rhumpa said. She threw her legs open and he slowly socketed himself deep in her famished slutslot. Somewhere alarm bells and buzzers rang, but the lovers fucked for a moment with joyous sweaty abandon, laughing. Then two headless men appeared and pulled Daggett away.

“Is this it for your balls, then?” Rhumpa asked.

“They’re going back in the tank,” he said, “but it was worth it. It’s only two weeks.”

“I’ll go to the opera with you,” Rhumpa called as they dragged Daggett away.

When he was gone, she gestured the other men back. “More come, more come!” she said. “Jerk it out! Ice my cake, dickboys! I want to feel like a breakfast pastry!”

Wade’s vesicles were jumping, and he felt sunny inside. He wanted to be near a woman he didn’t know, but he felt a little shy, so he called up the House of Holes and said, “Hi, this is Wade, and I’d like to be able to be friendly with a woman.”

Wade was transferred to Lila, who said, “Honey, why don’t you come on by?”

Wade said, “Because I don’t know how.”

“Do you have a penis, Wade?”

Wade said he did.

“Then grab hold of it.”

Wade grabbed hold of it.

Lila said, “Now make it hard and stare it down. Is it hard yet?”

Wade said, “No, it shrank way down while I was making this call.”

Lila said, “Well, you’re not going to get anywhere without a dependable boner.”

Wade said, “I realize that. Okay, here it goes. It’s hard now.”

“Good, now stare right down at the hole in it. That’ll open up time and spice for you. We’re out here in spicetime.”

Wade stared at his cockhole and zoomed down into it. It was kind of an odd, juicy, self-referential experience, but at the end he emerged as himself in the waiting room outside Lila’s office. Lila’s assistant for the day, an intern named Crackers, opened the door and asked him in. Wade said hi to her. Crackers, dressed in black pipe-stem jeans, was not bad at all — in fact, she was perfect — and he wanted to fondle her or touch her shoulder but it didn’t seem the right moment. He sat down in the office chair. There at her desk was the famous Lila, a large and lovely gal of a certain age.

“I’d like to be able to help you, Wade,” said Lila. “How long are you going to want to be busy here at the House of Holes?”

“I’d say three, four days,” said Wade. He was tightening and loosening his thighs while Kegeling his love muscle, making his balls rearrange themselves. It all felt good in a crowded sort of way. “I figure maybe a girl will take a liking to me, and then I’ll get over my shyness and go home with her and then I’ll have a girlfriend.”

“Now there’s a plan, Wade. Four days, nine thousand dollars a day,” said Lila, calculating. “That’ll be thirty-six thousand dollars for room and board.”

“That’s too much. I can’t pay it.”

Lila said, “Can you drive a truck? Because if you look good enough naked I can offer you a half-time paid gig here in which you drive the sludge truck. That’s the truck that drops off the pornsludge after we’ve let it settle in the settling tanks.”

“Where do I drive it to?”

“We spread it over fields at the Triple O Raunch, and we grow all kinds of yellow and red and blue cornflowers there. Women walk through the fields after the flowers have bloomed and they get all hot and bothered, and they don’t know that there’s a layer of sanitary pornsludge underneath their feet. It’s a pretty good system. But it depends on how you look naked.”

“I see. Well, let me take my clothes off.” Wade handed Crackers his Hawaiian boxers, and she tied his penis back with a rough strip of burlap.

“Good, now I’ll weigh your testicles, if you don’t mind,” said Lila.

Just then Hax walked in and slapped his head. “Here she goes again, feeling the balls,” he said.

“Hax, please be quiet and let me do my job.” Lila cradled Wade’s balls. “Hmm, good temperature,” she said, frowning slightly. “You seem strong and resourceful.” She lifted one ball, let it fall, then lifted the other and let it fall. “They’re heavy, and they’re independent. I believe you’ve got naturopathic potential. Your balls are holistic. You pass the testes.”

Wade asked what that meant.

“Some men’s come — young men’s come — can develop special healing powers,” Lila answered. “Did you masturbate yet today?”

“I haven’t,” said Wade. “I was too busy thinking about calling you up.”

“Good,” said Lila. She opened a wooden box on her desk and lifted out the top part, which held old coins and stamps. Underneath was a folded green cloth with ancient symbols on it. “This is the sacred healing cloth of Ka-Chiang,” Lila said. “I’m going to tie it loosely around your balls. If you wear it for twenty-four hours you’ll develop a crop of new sperm — very, very special sperm.”

“Special how?” asked Wade.

“If the cloth works as it should,” said Lila, “your new sperm will have the power to reattach human limbs or heads.”

“That’s interesting,” said Wade.

Gently, with her head held slightly to the side, Lila tied the green cloth around Wade’s balls. As she worked its corners into a small knot, the tugging made him smile slightly. His penis grew under the roughness of the burlap and pointed off to the side. “How does the Ka-Chiang cloth feel to you?” Lila asked.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Not too tight?” she said.

He said no, just right. “Burlap tickles, though.”

“Now,” she said, “you’re almost ready to go, but first you must, absolutely must, empty out the crop of mature sperm in your system, so that you will have a fresh, new generation formed under the powerful influence of Ka-Chiang. Crackers, could you please do a sexy lap dance to help Wade while he gives himself pleasure?”