Nicholson Baker - House of Holes

“Mm,” said Henriette. She wasn’t listening. She’d swiveled her scope and was looking intently off to the south. “Mountain zebras,” she said, in a small intense voice. “A herd. Two of them are getting ready to mate. How on earth did they get so high? Oh, they are such nimble climbers.”

“Where?” Ned was panning unsuccessfully.

“Way way off, about halfway down a crag, on a little ledge. See them?” Henriette pointed, then hunched to see more.

“No, I’m not seeing them,” said Ned. “Damnation!”

“Keep hunting, you’ll find them. The female is holding her head down. Ooh, she’s backing up. The male’s penis has dropped. It’s big but it’s hanging. It’s practically dragging on the ground. I don’t see how — ooh, her pussy is literally steaming. And his balls are huge and luscious.”

“I’m still not seeing it,” said Ned.

“She wants it. She’s switching her tail around. She’s a hot stripy-assed zebra bitch in heat, and she wants him now. Mmm, so natural. She’s not ashamed. She just aims her big swollen privates toward him and lifts her tail and winks her anus. She says, Hey zebra boy, have a look at this.”

“Where? God! Where? Shit. You want some wine?”

“Thanks.” Henriette took a sip and touched the cord wrapped around her legs. She felt zigzags of black-and-white zebra energy pouring into the flesh of her thighs. She looked over at Ned, who’d gone back to scanning the horizon anxiously for sex. She flipped up her skirt and pulled down her panties to let the air cool her pussylips. Ned missed it. Henriette squinted through the scope again, watching the zebras.

“They’re so beautiful together,” she said. “Oh, boy, his penis has flipped up now, my god, is it hard, and big. Big black zebra cock. Now he’s up on her! He’s holding on to her. Oh my god he’s stabbing that big thing in — oooh, that’s big. Oh, Ned, if you’ve got a dick somewhere on you, stuff me with it, this is your chance.”

Ned leapt up, fumbling with his pants, breathing the clean thin crazy air. “Here it is, baby.” He slid into her with bone-hard assurance and began bucking and slapping against her backside.

“Oh, that’s good, Ned,” said Henriette. “Mm.”

But it was too much too soon for Ned. “Woops, can’t hold it!” he said. “Sorry! Aaaaaah!”

Henriette was still watching. “He’s down again, he’s done, he’s done, looks like a little clear dribble from his cock, poor old mountain zebra, he’s shot his balls, and it’s all over — but she’s still keyed up!”

The quarter dropped in Henriette’s binoculars, and she looked up. Her gaze rested on Ned’s down-pointing cock, shiny with juice and come.

“I got carried away,” said Ned, panting.

Henriette waved at the couple on the nearest crag. “I think they watched us.”

“What about you? Can I, er, lick you?”

“That’s sweet, Ned, but no thanks. My clitoris is resting right now. I think I might want to give the Pussyboard a try. Will you ride down with me?”

“Sure.”

They descended in silence. Henriette flung her panties out the gondola’s window and watched them disappear into the clouds.

Krock was waiting at the Pussyboard launching area, which was built like the decking at the top of a ski jump. He unwound the Cable of Induhash from her legs and helped her take off her jingly belt. Ned and Krock lifted her so that she could strap herself into the harness, which pulled her thighs apart. “Breezy,” she said.

“This will go fast or slow on the cable according to your control,” Krock said, showing her the control stick. “You’ll want to go fairly slowly when you first skid down into the lake because the fluid is warm and it’s heavy, not heavy like molasses but almost creamy.”

“Is it toxic?” asked Henriette.

“It’s inert,” said Krock. “But still, I wouldn’t drink it if I were you. It’s just there to make the bottom half of your body feel good.”

Henriette nodded. “I’m ready. Thanks for the lovely date, Ned. It gave me a new perspective.”

“My pleasure,” said Ned. “I’m glad you got to see the zebras.”

Krock tightened a final strap on Henriette’s harness. “So — are you ready to feel some deep lake love on your pussy?” he asked.

Henriette swallowed and nodded.

There was a whir and a clunk and she was airborne, sitting on a small U-shaped fiberglass support, sliding down the long curving cable. She went fairly fast at first, her skirt fluttering. The air was warm, and the sky was a startling blue, and she said, “Wheee!” She swerved around a pylon tower and then turned down into the mountain valley, in the midst of which stretched an enormous white lake. She could see several other cables that swept down toward the lake, and she watched the other pussysurfers slow just before touchdown.

She dipped down the last length of the incline and swooshed and splashed and slowed on a level liquid plain of dazzling white. The lake was warmer than she expected. It had the consistency of hand lotion but with tiny gold flecks. The lucky liquids burbled and creamed over her hydroplaning vulva and, as she slowed, churned purposefully over her clitoris.

Then the harness lifted her back in the air for a moment and swung her dripping in a long laughing kicky hemicurve past the pontooned restaurant with blue tablecloths and waiters wearing white tuxedo vests. All at once, out of the lake rose a hugely gigantic phallocentric dick-shaped monster cock. It stood for a moment, thirty feet in the air, and then toppled with an enormous splash and disappeared into the white water.

A group of about twenty Deprivos were following Henriette’s progress with binoculars. They gestured entreatingly — down here, down here! She landed in their midst and climbed out of the harness, dripping. She knelt, breathing the rich air, feeling better than she had in months, listening to the rustle of stroking men around her. “Come all over me, guys,” she said. One man jizzed on her cheek, another on her shirt, two on her lips, one on her nose, one on her shoulder, and another — a cute guy with blond spiky hair — came politely into her cupped hand.

Krock appeared with a towel.

“How are you?” he asked.

“How am I? I’m a jizm-covered princess, and I’ve just pussysurfed the lake!” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. She went to her room and had a shower and slept for hours, feeling her revived clit glowing like a summer firefly.

Dennis, a traveling teacher, went to a city to give his two-day fund-raising seminar for nonprofits, “How to Get Other People to Give You All the Money They Have.” After he was done he waited in line at the hotel to check out. A woman got in line behind him. He turned and recognized her from his seminar.

“I enjoyed the class,” said the woman, who had a kindly face and dark hair that didn’t quite touch her shoulders. “I liked how few euphemisms you used. You never once said ‘issue.’ ”

“Thanks,” Dennis said.

“It was a lot of money for just two days, though.”

He asked her what kind of nonprofit work she did, and she told him that she was working on a documentary about women in a remote region of Estonia who sing while they masturbate. “We’ve got some great material,” she said. “It’s just a question of editing it down. We’re looking for investors.”

“Ah,” said Dennis. “What’s your name?”

“Mindy.”

Just then two different people at the counter said, “I can help you over here.” Dennis the traveling instructor and Mindy the filmmaker went up and paid their bills and signed, and then they were done. They walked toward the door and stopped for a minute feeling a warm breeze.