Nicholson Baker - House of Holes

“How so?”

Lila called Mischa in. “The cheekpump,” she said. She held Henriette for a moment. “If you let Mischa work on you with the cheekpump, you’ll get a day with the biggest ass you could possibly want.”

“Just one day, and then it goes back to normal?”

“Sometimes the ass lasts two days, if the fixative is properly applied. Here is a pair of jeans that will fit you after the procedure.” She handed Henriette a pair of strangely roomy pants.

Mischa took her to a small, dimly lit round chamber with a low couch against one wall. He pulled down from the ceiling two enormous clear-plastic suction cups that looked rather like cymbals or dinner plates.

“You have to strip down so I can put these on,” he said.

She shucked off her pants and scants and knelt on the couch. “Like this?” she said.

Mischa was frozen, staring. “My dear, dear friend,” he said. “I don’t know why you want to do anything to that rear end of yours. That is a lovely piece of craftsmanship.”

“Thank you,” said Henriette. “But I want it bigger.”

“I’m going to have to ask Krock to come in to help position the suction pads. This is too much ass experience for one man. Krock!”

There was a slight pause, and then a man emerged, chewing a hastily finished sandwich. He washed his hands at a little sink, winking at Henriette.

“What do we got?” Krock said.

“One day cheekpump,” said Mischa.

“For her?” Krock said. “I don’t think so.”

“Eh, she has a thing for a guy who likes a superbig ass.”

“In that case,” said Krock sadly, “let’s do it. But first, a moment to look — okay, baby?”

Henriette nodded. She sensed them both looking at her exposed wonderloaves and felt a softening and an unfurling in her innernesses.

Meanwhile Mischa reached up and pulled down a black hose with a squirt attachment at the end. “This is the flesh-bulging oil,” he said. He misted it lightly over her ass, and she felt strange things begin to happen.

“You hold the left and I’ll hold the right,” said Krock. Henriette felt the two suction cups embrace and conform themselves to her cheeks, and then there was a sound of a vacuum motor starting and jiggly vibrating sensations, and she felt pressure as both men leaned against the suction cups, holding the seal in place. “Oooooooffff,” she said. It felt strange but strange in a delectable way and then, when Mischa and Krock together started rotating their suction cups—“to distribute the energy uniformly,” Krock explained — she put her head down and gave herself up to their ministrations, feeling her privacies stretched and held open and then squeezed shut. “God dang!” she said. “Holy effing shitter wiggle.”

And then she started to feel the growing — she felt a heaviness to her ass as it grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. “Don’t let the cups slip off as she gets bigger,” Mischa warned, “keep pressing.”

Finally they were finished. The groan of the vacuum pump stopped. The vibrating suction pads released themselves with a juicy kissing sound.

“Okay, baby,” said Krock. “You have now got some seriously heavy assjunk. Mmm, mmm, mmm!” He rolled a full-length mirror over. Henriette stood.

“Holy cow!” she said. She reached back and squeezed it — it was like squeezing two soft smooshy pillows. She tightened one crumpet muscle and then the other and felt how that felt. “I hope Number 53 likes this,” she said, “because this is one major derriere.”

She turned toward the two of them, wearing only her bra. “What’s your verdict?”

They were both open-mouthed. Her eyes flitted to Krock’s nethers, and she saw what looked like a stack of Duplo blocks. “The verdict is yes.”

Mischa said, “And now, the fixative.”

“What’s that?” asked Henriette.

“I will excuse myself and Krock here will come on your new humongous ass.”

“What? I didn’t know about that. What happens if he doesn’t come on my ass?”

“It shrinks back to normal size in ten minutes.”

“No!”

“Yes. You have to have the fixative. For each man who comes on your ass, it’ll remain humongous for a full hour, up to a total of twenty-four hours. How much fixative do you want?”

“The full twenty-four.”

“Then you’ll need us to summon the beginning of the Man Line. Kneel on the couch and Krock will come on your ass, and when he’s done I’ll wipe you down and send in the next man. Okay?”

Henriette knelt on the couch and waited, jiggling her amazingly huge ass a few times to get used to how it moved. “Okay,” she said. “Bring on the Man Line.”

Dave was out for a walk in the middle of a quiet road near the House of Holes. He’d set out at about three o’clock in the afternoon, needing a little break after spending eight hours in the Porndecahedron watching amateur movies of women making themselves come. It was a lovely budding afternoon, and the sky was a perfect Pantone 2925 blue. Dave had a big plaid blanket in his canvas bag and a thermos of barley soup, and he unfurled the blanket over some matted grass and lay down and looked up at the clouds till he found one with soft breasts and a leg held alluringly half open, and he stuffed his hand down his pants and started working himself to the bone.

A young woman walked up and said, “Excuse me, what are you doing?” She had a large blunt-faced dog on a leash. The dog barked once politely and then sat down.

Dave whipped his hand out of his pants. “Just having my way with the clouds,” he said. “My apologies.”

“You shouldn’t be doing that here in this field. This is a working farm. It doesn’t belong to the House of Holes. Beyond that road over there is the property line. This is the real world.”

Dave was horrified. “Very sorry, I had no idea I’d wandered off the range,” he said. “You’d think they’d have a little border-crossing caution sign.” He looked at the woman. She had generously messy hair and rough lips with no lipstick and a tiny scar on the bridge of her nose. “I’ll tell you, it’s one heck of a nice field you’ve got here. And you have some nice clouds, too. Nice soft luscious clouds just hanging in the sky.”

“Thanks,” she said, with some friendliness, looking at his missing arm. “It was the clouds coming over this hill that convinced my parents to buy this place. It has different weather on this side. And the oats grow well down on this slope.”

“Do you drive the tractor?” Dave asked. “I’m Dave, by the way. I’d offer to shake your hand, but I’ve been, ah, having a meeting with the fondling fathers.” He folded up his plaid blanket and stuffed it into his canvas bag.

“I’m Chilli,” she said. “Yes, sometimes I drive the tractor.”

“Good skill to have,” he said. “Portable.” He stood and brushed off his pants, holding the canvas bag over his lap. “Well, I’m off. I’m practicing for a festival.”

“Was that what you were doing when I walked up, ‘practicing’?”

“I like to stay in shape.” They walked together down the rutted path toward the road. “Do you think there are certain fields on this planet that are sex fields? I feel that this is a sex field. It’s not just the clouds. It’s the shape of the land. You can’t tell if it’s a rectangle or a triangle or an oval. It undulates.”

“It does,” said Chilli.

“Can I ask you something impertinent? Do you ever come out here and just want to take your pants off? With the sky so huge and those clouds just hanging there?”

“Do I come out here sometimes and play with myself?”

Dave nodded. “Yeah. Do you do rude things to your little pulsing happy bloated clit, who’s sitting there in the prow of the boat, looking backward at the rowers with her horn saying, ‘Row, team, row, row the boat faster, and when you reach the shore, slide way up on the warm sand’? Do you do that?”