John Irving - Until I Find You

“What’s wrong—you don’t like me?” Leslie whispered in his ear. Her small hand closed around his penis. He was paralyzed in Mrs. Oastler’s clinging embrace.

“No, I like you—it’s just that my penis hurts,” Jack tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come. (In dreams, he was always tongue-tied—he could never speak.)

Jack could feel the little guy getting bigger in Leslie’s hand. Mrs. Oastler’s hand is no bigger than my own! he was thinking, while the music played. “ It don’t even matter to me where you’re wakin’ up tomorrow, ” Emma was singing, “ but mama, you’re just on my mind. ”

“Where Mister Penis is going, it won’t hurt anymore,” Mrs. Oastler whispered in Jack’s ear.

But how did Leslie know about Mister Penis? the boy wondered—and how did she know his penis hurt, when he couldn’t even talk ? “What did you say?” Jack tried to ask her, but he couldn’t hear his own words—only Mrs. Oastler, repeating herself.

Her voice had changed. It was definitely Leslie Oastler’s hard, thin body that was grinding against Jack’s, but her voice was Mrs. Machado’s voice—or a perfect imitation. “Where Meester Penis ees going, eet won’t hurt anymore.” (Jack was surprised she didn’t call him “dahleen.”)

“Please don’t. My penis really hurts. Please stop,” Jack kept trying to say. But if he couldn’t hear himself, how could Mrs. Oastler hear him? (He knew it was pointless to think that his mother might hear him, or that she would come save him if she did.)

If Bob Dylan ever stopped singing, maybe Emma would hear him and come to his rescue, Jack was thinking. He couldn’t hear the music anymore, but this didn’t necessarily mean that Bob had shut up. The way Leslie Oastler was breathing in his ear, Jack couldn’t have heard Bob Dylan if Bob had been singing his brains out in the bedroom.

“You’re forgetting to breathe again, baby cakes,” Jack distinctly heard Emma say. He’d thought it was Mrs. Oastler who was kissing him, but it was Emma ! “You can keep kissing me, but you gotta breathe, too.”

“I was dreaming,” he told her.

“You’re telling me! You were pulling your pecker off, honey pie—I’m not surprised it hurts.”

“Oh.”

“Better show me the little guy, Jack,” Emma said. “Let’s see what’s the matter.”

“Nothing’s the matter,” he told her. (He was ashamed to let her see the damage.)

“Jack, it’s me, for Christ’s sake. I’m not going to hurt you.” Both the bathroom light and the lamp on the night table were on. Emma took a good look at Mister Penis. “It’s kind of sore-looking—it’s all chafed !” she said.

“It’s what ?”

“Jesus, Jack, you’ve rubbed yourself raw ! You gotta leave it alone for a night or two. When did this start?”

“I haven’t been rubbing it,” he told her.

“Don’t bullshit me, baby cakes. You’ve been whacking off so much that the little guy looks positively abused !”

“What’s ‘whacking off’?”

“You clearly know what it is, Jack. You’ve been masturbating. ”

“What?”

“You’ve been giving yourself a hand job, Jack!”

“I didn’t do it to myself,” he said.

“Jack, you were doing it to yourself in your dream !” That was when Jack started to cry. He wanted Emma to believe him, but he didn’t know how to tell her. “Don’t cry, honey pie. We’ll make it all better.”

“How?”

“We’ll put some moisturizer on it or something. Don’t worry, Jack. This is what boys do—they beat off. I was wrong to think you were too young to be doing it.”

“I’m not doing it!” Jack insisted. He had to shout because she’d gone across the hall into his mother’s bathroom. She came back with some moisturizer. “Will it sting?” he asked her.

“Not this kind—only the kind with stuff in it stings.”

“What stuff?”

“Chemicals,” Emma said. “Perfume, unnatural shit, other stuff.” She was rubbing the lotion on his penis; it didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t stop crying. “You gotta get hold of yourself, honey pie. Beating off is no big deal.”

“I’m not beating off. It’s Mrs. Machado,” he told her.

Emma let go of the little guy in a hurry. “Mrs. Machado is touching you, Jack?”

“She does lots of things,” Jack said. “She puts Mister Penis inside her.”

“Mister Penis?”

“Mrs. Machado says Meester, ” he told Emma.

“She puts you inside her where, baby cakes? In her mouth ?” Emma asked, before he could answer her.

“In her mouth, too,” he said.

“Jack, what Mrs. Machado is doing is a crime !”

“A what?”

“It’s wrong, honey pie. I don’t mean you —you haven’t done anything wrong. But she has.”

“Please don’t tell my mom,” the boy said.

Emma put her arms around Jack and hugged him. “Honey pie,” she whispered, “we have to stop Mrs. Machado from doing this. We have to stop her.”

“ You can stop her,” Jack suggested. “I bet you could stop her.”

“Yes, I bet I could,” Emma said darkly.

“Don’t go!” he begged her. He held her as tightly as he could. He knew she could hold him much tighter, but Emma went on holding him as before. She rubbed his back, between his shoulders, and she kissed his eyelids, which were still wet from crying, and she kissed his ears.

“I’ve got you, baby cakes. You just go to sleep, Jack. I’m not going anywhere.”

He fell into one of those dreamless sleeps, so deep he almost didn’t wake up for the argument. “He had a nightmare, for Christ’s sake,” Jack heard Emma saying. “I was just holding him until he went to sleep. I fell asleep, too. What do you think I was doing? Fucking him with all my clothes on?”

“You shouldn’t be in bed with Jack, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler was saying. “You were under the covers, not to put too fine a point on it.”

“I think it’s all right. I think Jack is fine,” Alice was saying.

“Oh, you think he’s fine. Well, I’m so fucking relieved to hear that!” Emma shouted.

“Don’t you use that tone of voice with Alice, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler said.

“Jack, are you awake?” Emma asked.

“I guess so,” he said.

“You have any bad dreams, you just let me know,” Emma told him. “You know where to find me.”

“Thank you!” Jack called after her as she was leaving.

“Emma—” Mrs. Oastler started to say.

“Let her go, Leslie,” Alice said. “I can tell that nothing happened.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Jack?” Leslie asked.

“Sure I’m sure. I’m okay,” he told her. Jack looked at his mom as if she were his audience of one, although he knew that she wasn’t. “Nothing at all has happened,” he told her. Miss Wurtz would have approved of the boy’s enunciation. To Jack’s surprise, the lie was as simple to say as any line he’d ever delivered; for the first time, lying to his mother was actually easy to do.

Jack could hear Mrs. Oastler going down the hall. He heard the door to Emma’s room slam shut long before Leslie got there. He knew that his mom and Mrs. Oastler had made Emma madder than they made him, which was pretty mad—all things considered.

Jack smiled when his mother kissed him good night. He knew which of his smiles his mom liked best, and he gave it to her. He was tired and upset, but somehow he knew he would have a good night’s sleep. Mrs. Machado would meet her match in Emma Oastler—of that Jack had no doubt.